Mother's Day and the sun is shining; what better than to spend a few hours doing a little garden tidying up? As I worked my way around the shrubs and tubs I met hundreds of ladybirds.
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| This is an image of ladybirds in 1976 in The Wirral |
There are still some of us who remember the great hot summer of 1976. It was not just hot; it was dry and long-drawn-out, following a dry and warm winter. We were living at Rowan Avenue and it soon became apparent that the weather suited ladybirds. They were everywhere, flying almost in swarms.
To begin with this was fairly charming. The children loved to catch them; my friend's child Frannie caught a whole boxful which she presented to me! I persuaded her to put them onto her Daddy's roses which she did, one by one. I made a cake for Lizzie's birthday in the shape of a ladybird. We sang nursery rhymes about ladybirds and enjoyed the sunshine. What was there not to like?
After all, they weren't locusts, were they? And they are the gardener's friend, gobbling up aphids. But a few charming red and black spotted beetles are one thing. When they are flying in your face and into the bedrooms at night, clinging to net curtains and devilishly hard to remove it's something else. Our tolerance of the creatures came to an end when the moisture-starved insects started to bite. The first couple of times I thought that I was mistaken but it was true. Ladybird bites were reported everywhere and we had to caution the children about picking them up.
Somehow, though, we were still reluctant to swat or spray the insects - they are too firmly lodged in our childhood memories - and were delighted when Autumn brought deluges that more or less wiped them out.
But the roses that year were the best we'd had for years.
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