Tips on How to Attract Lacewings and Ladybugs to Your Garden
Knowing how to attract ladybugs and lacewings to your garden will help you maintain a balanced ecosystem. And if you want to help your garden thrive you want to create a balanced ecosystem.
Inviting beneficial insects into your garden is one of the best ways to help control pests and make your garden thrive.
Two of the best insects you can attract to your garden besides pollinators are ladybugs and lacewings. You will find that attracting ladybugs and lacewings to your garden is easier than you may have thought.
Why You Want to Have Ladybugs and Lacewings in Your Garden
Ladybugs and lacewings are amazingly helpful to your garden. These insects are great for helping to control destructive insects like aphids in your garden.
Aphids are very small insects that can spread rapidly if you miss them when inspecting your garden.
By inviting helpful insects into your garden, you are helping to build a healthy ecosystem in your garden. The waste they leave behind after eating pests will help to nourish your soil along with their bodies after they die.
You may also want to read this article to learn about plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
How to Attracts Ladybugs and Lacewings to Your Garden
Keeping an Insect Friendly Garden
If you want to invite beneficial insects into your garden like ladybugs and lacewings, you will need to make sure that your garden is a safe place for insects you do want.
Avoid Harmful Pesticides
You need to avoid the use of chemical pesticides that can harm all insects including the ones you want as well as the ones that are harmful to your garden.
Provide Shelter/Bug House
Provide the insects in your garden with shelter. If you want to attract ladybugs or lacewings you need to ensure that they have a spare space for shelter from the elements. These insects often hide in old mulch and leaf piles or fallen logs.
A great way to keep your garden tidy and still offer them a space is to install a bug house. A bug house should have several types of habitats using only untreated natural materials.
Provide a Safe Water Source for Insects in Your Garden
This can be done by placing a pie pan with some pebbles in the bottom and filling with water regularly in the hot summer.
This will provide a safe space for bees, butterflies, ladybugs, lacewings, and other insects to safely land and drink without the risk of falling in and drowning. These safe watering spaces will help keep insects nearby.
Plants that Attract Ladybugs and Lacewings
The best way to attract lacewings and ladybugs to your garden is to plant things that they love.
Everyone thinks to plant flowers that are favorites of bees and butterflies. But plants that attract ladybugs and lacewings are well worth the time. And many of these plants are still great for attracting bees and butterflies as well.
Dandelion
In the spring you can leave the dandelions in your yard. While many people see these flowers as weeds, they are a wonderful native plant with many great uses.
And they help to provide an early food source for things like ladybugs, lacewings, bees, and butterflies long before other flowers are blooming to help attract these to your yard early in the season.
Marigold
Marigolds are one of the most valuable flowers you can use as part of your companion planting in your garden.
These flowers help to repel unwanted insects, attract ladybugs and lacewings, and tend to help repel unwanted wildlife from your garden as well with their very strong scent.
Dill
If you’re looking for a great addition to your herb garden that can be used in the kitchen, while helping to attract ladybugs and lacewings the best option for your garden is dill.
The taproot means it can fit into tighter spaces as a companion plant, while pulling in a large number of beneficial insects.
The best part is you can use this dill to can up your cucumbers in your canner later to make dill pickles.
Fennel
When it comes to plants you normally do not want in your garden fennel is at the top of the list. This herb actually releases a chemical into the soil that kills off other plants.
For the best results, you want to grow this in a planter near your garden but not directly in your garden beds, and be sure to have a drip tray under your planter.
Yarrow
Fern leaf yarrow not only looks great in your yard and has many great uses, but it makes a great plant for attracting insects like ladybugs to your garden. Try adding yarrow to your flower beds to add some amazing compound flowers to your garden.
Cosmos
If you want something bright and colorful you can take advantage of, the bright fluffy blooms of the cosmos are an ideal choice.
These blooms are great for attracting ladybugs and lacewings to your garden along with bees and butterflies while looking amazing in your flower beds to help give them a pop of color.
Cilantro
Like dill, you can grow cilantro in your garden right in with your vegetable garden to help repel insects while attracting lacewings with their compound flowers. This plant does tend to take up more root space but can grow around more plants than dill without affecting the flavor.
Coriander
If you are looking for a great herb to add to your garden and your kitchen that can help keep your garden thriving try planting Coriander.
This herb is great for adding flavor to your favorite meals while the blooms are great for helping to attract lacewings that love this plant to your garden. Coriander looks great with your blooms and can help to repel unwanted insects from your vegetable garden.
Queen Anne’s Lace
If you are looking for a native wildflower to add to your garden you can grow Queen Anne’s Lace.
Not only does this provide tall blooms great for filling in the back of garden beds to give a lovely backsplash for your brightly colored flowers, but the compound blooms are great for attracting ladybugs to your garden.
Final Thoughts on How to Attract Ladybugs and Lacewings to Your Garden
Keep in mind that the best way to attract ladybugs and lacewings to your garden is to offer as much for them as you can. This means you should combine several blooms with shelter, and water for the best results in attracting them to your garden and keeping them there.
