Friday, May 25, 2007

Gnome bug zapper



Why do so many people have garden gnomes? Because they allegedly help in the garden at night.

I was a skeptic, until one of ours started attracting and killing the faux lady bugs, a.k.a. Asian lady beetles (Harmonia axyridis).

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Visit the Friday Ark.

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Updated: See the comments, where the shallow depth of my bug knowledge is tragically revealed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

We always had ceremic gnomes in our yard when i was a kid. We never had a garden, but we had gnomes.

Anonymous said...

Nice illustration! It makes the gnome look sad those teardrops....
But, the ladybugpupae on your gnome, at least some of them as far as I can see, do NOT belong to the Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis), but to another lady bug species introduced from Europe, the sevenspot Coccinella septempunctata...

Rurality said...

Oh well that would make a lot more sense, that they have just pupated instead of being killed. (Duh. My vast knowledge of insects is revealed!)

But there were a couple of live beetles crawling around just underneath the gnome, that were definitely the Harmonia axyridis... so that's what led me to believe that they were all that species.

Annie in Austin said...

Keep talking in Latin, Rurality, and you'll get Dan Hinkly all excited [or at least that's the theory at Garden rant.]

That's a garden gnome? The face is done with such sensitivity.

Annie at the The Transplantable Rose

R.Powers said...

ady lay ug-bay upa-pay, ho-way new-kay?

Deux can play at this atin-lay.

Rurality said...

Annie I had to go look up the entry you were talking about - I loved it! (I get that excited about wildflowers too.)

FC, I'm actually a lot better at Ubbi Dubbi. (Or Ububbubi Dububbubi, I guess I should say.) And I used to be fairly fluent at Double G (Gotheggoes litheggike thithiggis.)

Cathy said...

Gee - and he looks like such a benign spirit.

Rurality said...

Nio, your parents maybe thought the gnomes would build the whole garden? :)

Cathy, we have a matching one that's smiling, and he only had two on him. For some reason the contemplative gnome was favored.

The people who made these gnomes were our neighbors at the Bloomin' Festival in Cullman for years, and we always bought something from them. They were local and it was the only show they did all year. Their prices were more than reasonable. But they were not there this year.

lime said...

oh what a nice shot. it does look like the gnome is crying.

oh and as you mention about not buerning poison ivy....i found out when i was a child and a neighbor burned some. my entire body was COVERED. it was a horror.

Unknown said...

I love that photo, and the rest of the photos on the blog too. But this one is almost eerie and funny at the same time. I didn't get into Idol this year either. I think it's been sort of boring for the last two seasons. But the two before were great! Carrie has really done great. Fantasia, not so great but I blame that on the producers -- the songs on her album were not that good imo.

SantaBarbarian said...

Seattle's got a Freeway troll.

Think they have us pretty much beat.

KFarmer said...

I love your garden gnome- I've a few tucked away here and there myself :) They don't seem to do much for dillos though... ;)