Ladybugs for the Garden
By Benna Crawford, eHow Contributor 
updated: February 16, 2011
Ladybugs are like little vacuums, sucking up pests from garden plants.
Ladybugs love to eat aphids. So the tiny red and black beetles are a gardener's best friend. They are attractive, nonbuzzing, nonbiting insects with a voracious appetite. And they are the most organic possible pesticide. By providing them with breakfast, lunch and dinner bugs, you ensure the ladybugs will provide you with tasty, fresh fruits and vegetables that are not prenibbled by garden pests. It's a happy synergy for everyone.
- Asian ladybugs are very efficient aphid consumers, but they like warm hibernation spots and may decide to overwinter in your house. American ladybugs will find a crevice in a tree base or in plant refuse or in a protected space along a garden fence. It's better to opt for the native species when you can so it is protected from any invasive foreign species and your home is protected from uninvited winter guests. Be alert to the presence of the larvae when you are clearing out pests from your garden. They are flat, long, blue-black, orange-spotted minialligator-looking critters and they are eating your aphids so don't kill them by mistake.
- If your garden is not a ladybug sanctuary you can turn it into one. Don't use pesticides. They wipe out ladybugs and the bugs that ladybugs crave. Do plant or encourage ladybugs' favorite pollen plants: angelica, dill, dandelion, wild carrot, cilantro, tansy. caraway, cosmos, geraniums and yarrow. Chill ladybugs in the refrigerator overnight to slow them down -- chilly ladybugs don't fly, they crawl. Water the area that you mean to release the ladybugs in; they will appreciate the drink. Release them between sundown and sun-up because they navigate by daylight and will hang around after dark. Place them on aphid-infested plants so they find the food supply right away.
- Aphids are nasty plant lice and they are a ladybug delicacy. But ladybugs will also munch on mealy bugs, spider mites, and potato beetle and corn borer eggs. One ladybug can demolish 5,000 aphids in a lifetime. Larvae eat about 400 aphids each. Your garden will be crawling with cute red and black insects and no pests in no time.
- Ladybug populations collapse, seemingly overnight, and scientists are baffled by it. One entomologist at Cornell University started a survey called the Lost Ladybug Project to track and identify different ladybugs in gardens and in the wild. Anyone can participate in the hunt for rare and lost ladybugs by taking photographs of unusual specimens and jotting down the information about where and when they were found and getting the data to Cornell. Several common American species, including the 9-spotted New York state official insect, may actually be extinct. Some reasons for the vanishing ladybug populations might be habitat loss, pesticide use, invasion of foreign species or an increase in predators.
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