Lady Bug, Lady Bug

We have an aphid problem on a weeping cherry tree. The bigger problem is the location of the tree:

The tree is in the middle of my strawberry patch, so I decided to try lady bugs to take care of the problem. I am feeling a little like I’ve hired a mercenaries, pretty, nontoxic mercenaries, but still this is different than just repelling pests!You can do a couple of things to help the lady bugs adapt to their new environment. First, give them a drink of 10 % sugar water before releasing them. Second, water the location well before releasing them. Finally, release them during the cool part of the day, right below the infested plant. There was a horrible thunderstorm the night after I released our lady bugs. I spent a good part of the night worrying about them, but they did just fine.

I will post an update on the efficacy of killer lady bugs, but in the mean time we are enjoying watching them and holding them. We are grateful they have chosen to stay and eat our aphids, rather than flying away.