Rule of Spring #124: Release unto your garden a swarm of gentle, fun-loving, insect-eating ladybugs.
Come this time of year, it’s a tradition at my house. Survey the desolate, winter-scorched wasteland of our once glorious (and green) yard and give it some color (even if it’s just thousands of shiny-red hunchbacked beetles no larger than a pencil eraser.)
Our butterfly bushes may have died a shivering death, but now the yard comes alive in a bloom of crawling red dots.
The ladybugs are back.
Every year about this time, we get a package of the winged critters. It’s great fun when you have a kid, not to mention good for your yard. The littler fellers … correction, little ladies (say, how do they reproduce if they’re all gals?) are good for gardens. I’m told they’re voracious predators of aphids, mites, and for all I know, other ladybugs.
It is an experience — a wonderful experience.
But let me also warn you: Ladybugs might look cute and innocent from a distance, but up close they’re downright terrifying — mean-looking bugs that would just as soon steal your lunch money and call you Prissy McFatpants.
Oh, they’re harmless you say. Wonderful additions to the world — a natural pest control. They love roses, citrus and horseback rides on the beach.
I agree. I don’t doubt any of it. But I also tell you this, my friends: Once you’ve gazed upon a 1,500-strong ladybug army marching like the Mongol hordes, you’ll never look at the beetles the same way.
You can buy a package of ladybugs at many nurseries. They usually come in a mesh bag that is kept in the refrigerator until you’re ready to release them. The cold has the same effect on ladybugs that Thanksgiving turkey does on your Uncle Al. They lie on the sofa drowsy with their pants unbuttoned, all the while emitting noises that sound like a walrus belching the national anthem.
Bring ‘em out of the cold and they spring to life — 9,000 tiny little legs squirming to be free. They say to release then in the early evening after you’ve watered the yard. They come out thirsty, and if they don’t find water immediately, they abandon your yard in search of the nearest bar.
And again, I admit, it is a magical experience. My child runs about the yard screaming, “The ladybugs are here! The ladybugs are here!” I say things like, “Isn’t spring a glorious time!” and “I wonder if anyone ever mistook a bag of ladybugs for a midnight snack.”
It is all very beautiful. That is until you go to pour the 1,500 critters onto, say, a lemon tree. It is only then that you learn that 1,500 ladybugs don’t pour. No, 1,500 ladybugs crawl. They crawl out of the bag and they crawl straight … UP … YOUR … ARM!
All fifteen hundred ladybugs! Fifteen hundred ladybugs who have never experienced anything but a plastic mesh bag. For some it’s like being an 18-year-old cut loose in Daytona during Spring Break. Others are timid and frightened of this brave new world. Still more are no doubt pissed about the whole refrigerator experience. Shoot, if you were shoved in with three-week-old Chinese food and something that smells like garlic-flavored tobacco smothered in motor oil, you’d be a little angry, too.
And it is this conglomeration of critters that is goose-stepping up your arm. You can tell yourself they’re harmless, but how many characters in low-budget horror movies said that very same thing right before the radioactive, blood-thirsty aliens ate all the flesh off their bones? As soon as that thought pops into your head panic sets in and you’ll swear you’ve felt a bite or two.
Your family will do their best to help. They’ll say things like, “Uh, shouldn’t they be in the bushes?”
That’s when you realize you’re on your own, with few options. You certainly can’t go with your gut instinct — stop, drop and roll. Picture the high school English essays your daughter will one day write: “The day my father MURDERED 1,500 helpless ladybugs was the day my childhood died.” Can’t go there.
So you hop about, flapping your arms, squealing like a freshly-castrated pig because who cares about being manly when you’re being mauled by ladybugs.
“Help me, people,” you’ll finally manage to get out. “I think one just crawled in my arm pit!”
I don’t know how we got all the ladybugs off of me, but luckily my flesh was still intact. Hopefully they’re all happy now in the yard and getting fat on aphids. Each morning as I leave for work I see one or two on a leaf or a branch. They look content, and I hope they stay that way. My new motto is: Don’t trifle with spotted beetles, especially if they know where the spare key is.