Attracting Ladybugs to Your Garden

If you are having trouble with aphids in your garden, it is time that you attracted the most popular aphid killers to your garden. Well, ladybugs are your best friends that will help in getting rid of the aphids in your garden. An adult ladybug can easily account for 5000 aphids in its life span of one year. They are hungry feeders and they love to binge on aphids. The ladybugs sometimes called ladybirds in Australia have the capacity of eating as many as 50 to 60 aphids in a single day. It is not just the aphids they eat. They also enjoy eating a wide variety of insects and larvae that include: mites, scales, mealy bugs and leaf hoppers. They are a very beneficial group of insects and are also known as lady beetles.

Attracting Ladybugs to Your Garden with Plants

Ladybugs do not pose any threat to your garden plants and are only beneficial to them. Ladybugs love to eat pollen and this means you can grow numerous plants in your garden to attract the ladybugs. Some of the herbs and plants that will help in attracting ladybugs easily are cilantro, fennel, dill, Angelica, cosmos, caraway, marigold, chives, Calendula,

yarrow, fever few and scented pelargoniums. Another option to attract the ladybugs to your garden is to leave the aphids and other pests on the plants, without using pesticides and organic sprays to destroy them. The sprays can repel off the ladybugs as well. You can also opt for decoy plants in your garden, the main attraction of aphids to keep them from targeting your main plants.

Make ladybug feeders

Attracting ladybugs to your garden you need to make ladybug feeders in your garden space to attract them. If you do not have the time to wait for ladybugs to come to your garden, then you can go and buy them to release in your garden. Make sure that you buy more as not all the ladybugs will stay in your garden. It is important that you buy the Hippodamia Convergens species as they are known to feed on tons of aphids. It is vital to make the garden environment an attractive one for the ladybugs before you release them into your garden. This is where ladybug feeders will be of great help.

The following are the steps to make ladybug feeders to attract the ladybugs to your garden.
Materials needed
• Bamboo (10 inches in length and ½ to 2 inches in diameter)

• Raisins

• Garden twine

• Pencil and ruler

• Saw and drill

Instructions

• Make a mark on the bamboo at 10 inches. Use the pencil to draw a line from the mark towards the end at an angle.

• Use the saw to carefully cut the line at an angle. Repeat the same thing on the other side of the bamboo. Use sandpaper to smooth the cut ends. This forms an umbrella to protect the ladybugs during rain.

• Drill holes in the bamboo at a bigger size than the twine. Insert the twine ends through the holes and then double knot on each end.

• You can hang the ladybug feeder and add a couple of raisins into the feeder.

• The raisins will attract the bugs to the feeder. Make sure you feed them with raisins if aphids and other insects are scarce.
The location where you place the bamboo feeder is important. Hang it close to a food source, like rose bushes, so that aphids are attracted very easily.

I hope the ladybug feeder brings you good luck in Attracting Ladybugs to Your Garden. Do you know Ladybugs are a symbol of good luck and fortune….