Ladybugs should be appreciated for more than just their good looks. Yes, they are the cutest bugs around, but, most importantly, they are great for your yard and garden.
The Rye Garden Club Conservation Committee
Ladybugs should be appreciated for more than just their good looks. Yes, they are the cutest bugs around, but, most importantly, they are great for your yard and garden.
A Beneficial Insect
Ladybugs are known as “good bugs” because they are voracious eaters of soft-bodied insects, insect eggs, and aphids. Aphids are the large group of plant-eating bugs such as white fly that eat what grows in your garden. Ladybugs lay their eggs within the colony of aphids. As soon as ladybug larvae hatch, they begin eating those “bad bugs.” In the larvae stage alone, a ladybug may eat up to 5,000 aphids. A ladybug in the wild can live up to three years and throughout its lifetime eats garden pests.
Make a Ladybug Habitat
If you use chemical pesticides, you will kill all the bugs in your garden, good and bad. This may make your “bad bug” problem worse, as you will wipe out the beneficial insects you need to keep plant-eating critters under control. If you see white fly on your boxwoods, spray your plants with neem oil, a vegetable oil made from the seeds and fruits of neem, an evergreen tree. Spray it first thing in the morning or late in the evening, when the good bugs are least active — that way you won’t hit any bees or other beneficial insects directly. The spray will dry before ladybugs and honeybees land on the plants, and only the insects trying to eat your plants will die.
Ladybugs hibernate in the winter in leaf matter. If you have all your leaves blown and taken away from your property, you will lose your good bugs! Leave some leaves in your garden beds over the winter and you will save those bugs and insulate your plants during the cold months. Leave an area of your yard to be a “wild space”, where leaves are never raked or blown and your will offer a good winter home for ladybugs.
The Lost Ladybug Project
Current yard maintenance practices have made things tough on the ladybug, and several native species are becoming rare. A great summer project for adults and children alike is to help entomologists at Cornell track ladybugs. You can participate in the Lost Ladybug Project by photographing these spotted beauties and sending data about them to these scientists. For ladybug identification guides and more information about how you can help with the project, visit www.lostladybug.org.
Did You Know?
The native nine-spotted ladybug is the official New York State insect.
