lady beetle larvae/pupae

[Christopher Fuhrman]

Hi,

It's my second spring/summer with a garden in Montreal and I'm noticing lots of lady beetle larvae/pupae this time of year. They are very aggressive aphid eaters, and the pupae are very cool looking. I had no idea what they were at first, but found a great web page or two using Google images search. For example:

will they take care of saw-fly larvae? My observation is that they seem to flee them, as they flick their tails at them... This is my biggest frustration with my roses, as I don't want to use pesticides. I end up picking them off by hand, or cutting the new growth once it shows signs of laid eggs (trauma to the fine branches). It's tedious, and I wish there were some natural predator to take care of that for me.

[Square Foot Gardening]

This is a typical action for them. That is how they discourage predators. Good news is, yes there are predators. Bad news, ants and stink bugs lol. Also, paper wasps will patrol constantly to find them, and love them. Although Bacillus thuringiensis will affect some fly larvae, I didn't see the saw fly listed. It turns out that BTK will only work on catepillars, and sawfly is not a catepillar. You can get it at your local nursery, along with horticultural oil and insecticidal soap. This site has a lot of info on roses

This is my biggest

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