Tansy, Russian Sage and Ladybugs, Oh My!

Reader Contribution by Lemon Verbena Lady
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<em>You can check out the Lemon Verbena Lady at her blog</em>
<a href=”http://lemonverbenalady.blogspot.com/” target=”_blank”>http://lemonverbenalady.blogspot.com</a>.</p>
<p>When The Herbal Husband and I said yes to a garden tour this summer, I had envisoned taking out a huge clump of tansy that was trying to control my herb garden. </p>
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<p align=”center”>The suspect plants are pictured in the left and part of this photo.<br />
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<p align=”left”>Then I started to see signs of life–beneficial life at that! So much for jetisoning the tansy! As the tansy was growing and swallowing up more and more of the back of my herb garden, I noticed the ladybugs were moving on to the Russian sage. </p>
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<p align=”left”>They were taking a small tour of my herb garden. The ladybugs were nowhere to be found on garden tour day. I was hoping to show them off to the visitors in the garden. Maybe because it rained, they moved under the leaves to keep dry. They were back in full force today with the hot sunny day and welcomed visitors in my herb garden. I have joined the <a href=”http://www.lostladybug.org/” target=”_blank”>Lost Ladybug Project</a> and uploaded my photos to their website. They identified my little darlings as multicolored Asian ladybugs (<em>Harmonia axyridis</em>). So think twice and check carefully before you want to take out that aggressive herb that is taking over your garden!</p>

  • Published on Jul 28, 2009
Tagged with: Reader Contributions
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