Ladybugs, also known as ladybirds or lady beetles, have a fantastic reputation among gardeners thanks to their ability to control pests. If you’ve ever wondered how to use ladybugs in your garden correctly, this article is for you. We’ll explain what these colorful beetles can do for you and how you can get them to make a home in your yard. With a little planning, you can create a garden that lady beetles will adore.
To successfully use ladybugs in your garden, you should grow plants that attract them, like marigolds, geraniums, and fennel. It’s also helpful to put out water dishes for hydration and plant ground cover so they can hide from predators. Never use chemical pesticides, which could kill off your ladybugs.
We’ll go deeper into the details of keeping a ladybird-friendly garden below, while sharing some information about the life cycle and behavior of these beloved bugs. We’ll also introduce you to the one type of lady beetle you might not want among your plants.
Why Should You Use Ladybugs In Your Garden?
Two words: pest control. Ladybugs like to eat the things that eat your plants. They’re most famous for their enormous appetite for aphids — a single ladybird can eat around 5,000 aphids over the course of its life. However, they also prey on lots of other soft-bodied, sap-sucking insects. In fact, some varieties of ladybug specialize in hunting specific pests, most notably the Mealybug Destroyer and Spider Mite Destroyer.
Other plant killers that ladybugs eat include:
- Scale
- Thrips
- Potato Beetle larvae
- Chinch Bugs
- Asparagus Beetle Larvae
- Whitefly Pupae
Using ladybugs to control your garden pests is a much more sustainable method than spraying pesticides. It won’t kill other beneficial insects or force them to develop chemical resistance. Instead, this tactic works with the natural cycles of predator and prey.
Of course, that means you won’t fully eliminate pests by adding ladybugs. This might be possible in an enclosed environment like a greenhouse, but not in a garden. However, the correct use of these beetles should let you keep mealybug populations low enough that they won’t threaten your plants.
What Are Ladybugs and How Many Kinds Are There?
Technically, ladybugs aren’t bugs at all — scientists use the word “bug” for the Hemiptera family of insects. Ladybugs belong to Coleoptera, the beetle family, which is why some people prefer to call them “lady beetles”. In some places, “ladybird” is another common name. We’ll still sometimes refer to them as bugs, but remember that we’re using it in the casual sense, not the scientific one.
There are more than 6,000 species of lady beetles found around the world, with over 500 in North America alone. They make up the Coccinellidae family, and like lots of insects, they go through four life stages. They start out as eggs, hatch into larvae (AKA nymphs), hunker down into pupae, then emerge as adults to mate and start the cycle again.
Most of us wouldn’t recognize ladybugs during their larval stage when they look like segmented caterpillars with tufts of bristles poking out along their sides. They’re typically black with orange spots or stripes. Though they’re not nearly as cute as grown-up ladybirds, they’re almost as helpful. A single nymph can devour up to 400 aphids to fuel up for its transformation into an adult.
You’re no doubt familiar with the iconic red-with-black-spots image of the lady beetle, but they come in a surprising variety of other patterns and colors. Ladybug wing covers can be yellow, orange, pink, tan, or white, with spots in various shades of orange, yellow, red, and white in addition to black. Some have stripes instead of dots, and others have no markings on their backs at all!
Almost all of these types of ladybirds make charming guests — with one important exception.
The Asian Lady Beetle
As the name suggests, this beetle is native to eastern Asia rather than North America. It’s become an invasive species in many parts of the U.S., often outcompeting local ladybugs.
The official name for this critter is Harmonia axyridis, while its nicknames include Harlequin Ladybug, Halloween Beetle, and Japanese Ladybug. It looks a lot like the classic ladybug, with a pale orange wing case and black spots. Its defining feature is the “M” shape formed by the black-and-white markings just behind its head.
Though there are ecological concerns about the rapid spread of these beetles, they’re not necessarily bad news for your garden. Asian Lady Beetles chomp down on pests with just as much enthusiasm as their North American cousins. The problem is that as the weather gets cold, Harlequin Ladybugs flood into homes looking for warm places to overwinter.
Once they’re inside, these beetles are a pain in the neck, crawling over windows and warm spots in giant swarms. They secrete a nasty-smelling fluid, leaving stains on your walls, and they sometimes bite humans. This won’t seriously hurt you (unless you have a rare allergy), but it is irritating.
Trying to rid your garden of Asian Lady Beetles is largely pointless. Any pesticides that work on them will also affect more benign ladybird varieties. Instead, try to stop them from getting inside in the first place. Plug up any gaps in your window and door frames with sealant before the weather turns cold.
If they get into your house anyway, try to get rid of them without squishing them Place an inside-out nylon stocking inside the tube of a vacuum cleaner and secure it with a rubber band. Then suck them up into the sock, tie off the end, and take them outside.
How To Attract Ladybugs To Your Garden
Convincing ladybirds to live in your garden will make pest problems much less likely. Luckily, these helpful beetles are found throughout the world, and there are native species living in every state in the U.S. If you make your garden a comfortable place for them to live, the odds of some ladybugs moving in are high. So what do they enjoy in a garden?
Prey
Lady beetles will only settle down on your property if they can find enough to eat. That might sound like a bit of a catch-22. You need lots of pests to attract ladybugs so they’ll…get rid of the pests? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
It’s not as tricky as it seems, though. For one thing, as long as you’re not using pesticides, it’s very unlikely that your garden is completely pest-free. We usually don’t notice aphids or mealybugs until they appear in large enough numbers to threaten our plants. But just because you’re not experiencing a full-blown infestation doesn’t mean there are no bugs for a hungry lady beetle to hunt down.
You can help make sure of this by planting some “trap crops”. These are species that are especially tasty to pests. Bugs like aphids crave these plants and will attack them before anything else in your garden. Nasturtium flowers (Tropaeolum) and Marigolds (Tagetes erecta) are particularly effective aphid attractors.
You’re obviously taking a risk by deliberately luring pests into your garden, but it can be successful if done with care. One option is to place trap crops near the edges of your property, forming a biological “moat” around your other plants. If ladybugs settle in there, they’ll be close enough to your ornamental plants to notice and respond to pest outbreaks.
Pollen
Though they’re efficient predators, ladybugs will also snack on pollen. You can place pollen-rich flowers in your garden to serve as an alternate food source when there aren’t many pests around. Lady beetles tend to favor plants with small, flat flowers, which make it easy for them to land and feed. Yellow and white petals are especially attractive to them.
Good pollen crops for ladybugs include:
- Dill
- Fennel
- Calendulas
- Angelica
- Cosmos
- Yarrow
- Geraniums
- Sweet Alyssum
- Queen Anne’s Lace
Water
Buzzing around the garden hunting for pests is thirsty work. Ladybugs need a source of water in their habitat to stay healthy. You can leave a few shallow trays of water outside for them to sip from. Wet cloths, paper towels, or cotton balls also work. Or, if you’re using trap plants around the edges of the yard as food reservoirs, mist them occasionally with a hose or spray bottle. Your ladybirds will lap up the droplets on the leaves.
Shelter
Although lady beetles are excellent predators, they’re not at the top of the food chain. Many different types of birds, frogs, dragonflies, and spiders will happily eat them. If you want to use ladybugs in your garden, provide places for them to hide. This will help them survive and make them more likely to lay their eggs in your garden.
Ground cover plants are a good way to help your lady beetles feel safe. As a bonus, some of them also have scents that help attract ladybugs to the garden. Examples include Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, and Horehound.
Detritus like dead leaves and branches also offer good cover for your beetle pals. Most of us don’t like leaving too much mess outside our homes, but a little “planned chaos” can be good. It helps preserve the diversity of your garden’s ecosystem, making space for the wild predators that can protect your domesticated plants. As with the trap crops, the edges of your garden are probably the best places for this.
Some guides also suggest building or buying wooden “ladybug houses”. We haven’t seen much to convince us that ladybugs actually use these contraptions, or that they’d work any better than the natural shelter options described above.
A Poison-Free Environment
We touched on this earlier, but it’s worth emphasizing: ladybugs and pesticides do not get along. If you’re going to try natural pest control methods, don’t add toxic chemicals to your plants.
Should You Buy Ladybugs to Use in Your Garden?
Not everyone is content to wait for ladybirds to flock to their gardens. They prefer to buy their beetles in bulk to jump-start the process. This is a viable method, but you should understand a few things before you buy:
- Just because you release ladybugs into your garden doesn’t mean they’ll stay there. These beetles can fly more than 70 miles without taking a break. They’ll move on quickly if the environment isn’t to their liking. Make sure you lay the groundwork by making your garden a good environment for lady beetles. Otherwise, almost all of them will simply head out for greener pastures.
- Your local garden store probably won’t have them for sale. In general, you’ll have to order ladybugs online and have them shipped to you. In many cases, these sellers are collecting wild beetles, quite possibly from the other side of the country. This poses ecological risks — the new bugs could outcompete the native ladybirds in your area. They might also introduce diseases and parasites to the local population.
- The quality of online sellers can vary a lot. Not all companies that ship ladybugs are careful about helping them survive the journey. And a startling number of suppliers are clearly selling invasive and aggressive Asian Lady Beetles.
How to Use Mail-Order Ladybugs in Your Garden
If you do choose to buy and release lady beetles instead of attracting local species, here’s how to give yourself the best odds of success:
Do Your Research
Read customer reviews for the supplier to make sure you’re not going to wind up with a box of dead bugs. Also, make sure you know what type of ladybugs you’ll be getting — look for reviews with customer photos. If they have the tell-tale “M” markings behind their heads, they’re Asian Lady Beetles, and you should steer clear.
The other common commercially available species is Hippodamia convergens, the Convergent Lady Beetle. This is less problematic than the Halloween Beetle, but it can still compete aggressively with local species. Find out if they’re already established in your area. If not, please don’t be the one to introduce them, as you could be creating an ecological mess.
Keep Them Cool
Don’t leave your mail-order lady beetles on your stoop any longer than you have to. Instead, get them into the fridge (not the freezer) right away. This will slow down their metabolism and put them in a state a little like hibernation until you’re ready to let them out. You can store Coccinellids for up to two weeks in the fridge.
Timing Is Key
You should generally release ladybugs at night. They’ll be much less likely to fly away; instead, they’ll spend the night in your garden, then wake up hungry and start chowing down. Some may still fly off in the morning, but with a little luck, most will decide that there’s enough food at your place that they should stick around.
Early spring or summer is the best time to use lady beetles in your garden. This will give them time to get established on your property and hopefully lay some eggs. It also makes it less likely that they’ll overheat and die in transit.
Water First
Lady beetles are almost always thirsty when they arrive at your doorstep. Before letting them out, spray down your plants with water. This will give the new arrivals something to drink, which also encourages them to stay close by.
Some people advise spritzing the bugs with a bit of watered-down soda water. This makes their wings a little sticky, discouraging them from flying and making them less likely to skip town.
Release From the Bottom Up
Add ladybirds at the base of your plants and let them climb up. Start with any plants that are visibly infested with aphids or other soft-bodied pests. Once a few beetles have made their way onto the buggy plants, move on to other areas of the garden. If possible, try to get your ladybugs onto lots of different kinds of plants. This will increase the odds that they’ll find something they like and decide to stay.
You may need to move quickly! Ladybugs tend to start rapidly escaping once you open the container. Quite a few of them will probably scamper onto your hands and arms, so resist the reflex to swat at them.
Try Separating Them Into Batches
If possible, it’s often a good idea to split your lady beetle release into two or three stages. That way, if the first wave flies off quickly and your pests bounce back, you’ll have a cleanup crew ready and waiting.
Final Thoughts
The best way to use ladybugs in your garden is to attract wild species naturally, but releasing store-bought bugs can also work in a pinch. The most important thing is to do what you can to foster biodiversity, both in your helpful insects and in your plants. We hope the guidelines above help you fill your garden with beautiful, happy, and hungry lady beetles.