A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Ladybugs!

I ordered some ladybugs from buglogical, inc and they just showed up today. They must've shipped them a day early. I wanted them because last year I had an aphid problem. The year before that we had swarms of ladybugs and I'm not sure I ever saw an aphid. Also we're doing my soon-to-be 3 yr old daughter birthday with a Ladybug Theme in a week and a half.

Back to the point: where should I release these guys if I don't have my garden up yet? I can keep them up to 2 weeks in the fridge, and plan on releasing some into my flower beds and possibly my apricot tree. But there is no way that 2 flower beds and a tree are going to need 1500 ladybugs.

Any experts out there who can lend me some advice? How long will these guys stick around, if at all?

Thanks!

I heard that you shoul release ladybugs at night, if you do it in the afternoon or morning, they're gonna fly away...I've always love ladybugs...remember in elementry school we used to take a sandwich bag and try to collect as many as we can, looking back that's only like 5 years ago

I was told to release them in the evening and to shower my plants first as ladybugs will be thirsty upon release.
I followed the instructions but they all took off within 2 days.