Make Your Garden a Ladybird Paradise

, written by Benedict Vanheems gb flag

Ladybird

The beneficial bugs found in our gardens vastly outweigh garden pests, so it pays to adopt a nature-friendly approach to gardening. Scour the bushes, look among the vegetables or dig down into the soil and you’ll discover a myriad of beneficials. My personal favourite? The ladybird, whose jazzy wing markings are always a delight to see.

And ladybirds are one of our biggest allies – as we’re about to find out...

Identifying Ladybirds

There are many different species of ladybirds, often named according to the number of spots on their wing cases. For example, the two-spot ladybird, the seven-spot ladybird, the 14-spot, and the seriously funky-looking 22-spot ladybird!

The harlequin ladybird is invasive in both Europe and North America and will eat the eggs and larvae of other ladybirds when food is scarce. But they’re not all bad –they eat lots of pests too!

“22-spot
Ladybirds are usually red, orange or yellow, and have varying numbers of spots on their wing cases

Ladybird Lifecycle

The ladybird lifecycle consists of four distinct phases.

Eggs

Below are the tiny eggs, typically laid on the undersides of leaves in batches of anything from five to 40 eggs. Nettles are a firm favourite for egg laying, so it’s worth leaving a few patches of nettles to keep these aphid-munching beetles close by.

“Ladybug
Ladybird eggs are laid safely hidden away on the underside of leaves

Larval Stage

And ladybirds eat lots of aphids. As soon as the eggs hatch, the formidable-looking, spiky larvae begin gorging on any aphids they can find. Their voracious appetites will see them devour up to 50 aphids a day, or 5,000 during their lifetime. They eat other soft-bodied pests too, including whitefly, mites and scale insects, making them one of the long-suffering gardener’s very best friends!

“Ladybug
Ladybird larva look fearsome but are only dangerous to soft-bodied bugs like aphids

Pupal Stage

After a series of molts the larva pupates. Often yellow or orange and with black markings, this pupal stage lasts for around one to two weeks during which time the magical transformation from larva to adult beetle occurs.

“Ladybug
Ladybirds pupate for a week or two before turning into the adult beetles we know and love

Adult Beetles

Then, finally, the adult beetle emerges. The brightly-coloured beetles hibernate over winter, usually in groups or aggregations, before mating soon after waking up again in spring, ready to start the lifecycle all over again.

“Ladybugs
Ladybirds hard at work on the next generation!

Encourage More Ladybirds Into Your Garden

As well as leaving some nettles be, avoid spraying pesticides, which will have a knock-on effect on predators such as ladybirds. It’s tempting to panic at the first sign of aphids, but a little restraint often pays off with a visit from these hungry bugs.

Ladybirds can also be attracted into your garden with pollen-rich blooms. Flat-topped flowers such as yarrow, angelica, fennel and dill are great, along with common companion plants like calendula, sweet alyssum and marigold.

“Ladybug
Flowers like this dill will entice more ladybirds into your garden

Offer ladybirds somewhere to overwinter too. They usually hibernate in hollow stems and other nooks and crannies, so delay cutting back old stems till spring. Or why not make your own ladybird hotel by stuffing straw and a bundle of wide bamboo sections into an old pot, tied together to keep them all in place. Stuff more straw around the sides for insulation, and position the ladybird house one to three feet above the ground, in a sheltered, sunny spot.

You may or may not be aware that we are running a competition as part of our Big Bug Hunt. You’ve seen our attempts at capturing ladybirds on film, but now we’re after clips of other bugs too. By entering the Big Bug Hunt Video Clip Competition you can help us fill the gaps – and there are cash rewards for every clip we use. Go shoot some bugs!

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Comments

 
"Sounds like fun to me!!! ;)"
Becky on Thursday 25 June 2020
"So glad you showed this, I saw some lady bug larva in the garden and didn’t know what it was. So happy I didn’t kill them! "
Trish Bishop on Wednesday 2 June 2021
"Great info. I have a mature garden in the home which I have just moved into and I am trying to make it an natural garden, making my own compost and ‘going back to the future’ to make this a nature friendly environment making my own compost, no pesticides etc. But although it is a big garden I have not seen a single ladybird here. Reason unknown. I guess they are here, I just haven’t seen them. But I plan now to plant some plants, you recommend, to help them and to make my own ladybird hotel for them to overwinter."
David Wherrett on Tuesday 3 August 2021
"Very best of luck with your rewilding project David. I'm sure the ladybirds will make an appearance eventually - sometimes it just takes time. But you're doing a grand job in making your garden more nature friendly. What a difference it would make if more of us did this."
Ben Vanheems on Thursday 5 August 2021
"I was in the process of pruning my rather large fennel when I realised I had quite a number of pupating ladybirds on the stems. I left the heads I had cut in a pile and within a week several had emerged. Thank goodness I noticed them ,and have left the pruning for another day. Am now aware that the ladybirds like this type of plant. Will leave the pruning till later next year. Thanks for the information on your website. "
Barbara Stokes on Monday 12 September 2022
"Your picture of “ladybugs working hard on the next generation” is not a picture of ladybugs. Those are Asian Beatles, and an invasive species! "
Anonymous on Sunday 14 May 2023
"The Asian beetle, or harlequin ladybug as it's also known, isn't native to North America and Europe, but is still a useful garden visitor, eating lots of aphids etc. However, yes, it is outcompeting many native ladybug species - which isn't such good news!"
Ben Vanheems on Monday 15 May 2023

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