DON’T Buy Ladybugs; PLANT THESE to Attract Native Ladybugs

Foreign. Gardener's favorite insect. And if you're like most gardeners, you've probably been tempted to order a few online or buy some at a local garden center. Well, hold that order, because today I want to show you how buying ladybugs online could be a complete waste of your money and could actually hurt your garden. Instead, I'm going to show you how to attract tons of ladybugs to your garden and naturally and get them to stick around for the long haul. And if you do all the things I outlined in this video and you're still not seeing ladybugs, stick around to point number five, because that one is going to surprise you. It's true. Ladybugs are incredible for the garden. They eat literally tons of aphids, they help with pollination, and they're really, really cute. But when we box them up and sell them like a product, it just doesn't work. So here's a simplified version of the way the ladybug industry works. Most ladybugs are harvested from high elevation areas in the western US during their hibernation period. Then they're boxed up and shipped across the country to all kinds of garden centers and to homes like yours. So imagine that you're snuggled up in a cabin with your friends in the middle of winter and next thing you know, you get grabbed, boxed up and sent to Florida. Be a little alarming, right? Well, ladybugs are living beings. They're used to living in tight knit communities and they're also used to living in certain climates with certain food availability. So when they wake up in a totally different place with totally different food to eat and a strange temperature, they're usually out of that space within 24 hours. So this is what makes buying ladybugs a waste of money, a waste of time, and honestly, a little sad. Now don't get me wrong, we definitely want as many ladybugs in our garden as possible possible. Because these creatures, they eat 50 aphids a day. That's up to 5,000 aphids in just one single season. They do other great things like eating soft bodied insects like mealworms and mites. They also protect your plants when they're at their youngest by clearing out nests of lots of insect eggs. And finally, they help with pollination. As they crawl from plant to plant, they bring the pollen from each bloom to the next. So when you get mail ordered ladybugs, you're only getting adult ladybugs that have just been woken up from winter hibernation instead. We want to think about all the stages of a ladybug's life. It starts out as an egg, becomes a larva, then a pupa, and then a full grown adult. And in your garden, you want all four stages. So after the egg forms, it creates a larva. And this thing is crazy looking. It's going to look like a little black t. Tiny alligator. But this little creature is so powerful, it will eat up to 400 aphids before it even matures into a full grown ladybug. 400 aphids for a baby bug. Then it becomes a pupa. It's going to hang around for just a few days in your garden and then boom, it's a full grown, beautiful ladybug, ready to eat its share of aphids and help pollinate your garden for the entire season. And at the end of the season, it doesn't disappear. It hibernates in your garden space. This is why you don't want to clear up all the debris. This is why you want to leave some of the stems and flower heads from your garden all throughout the winter. Because ladybugs find those little homes and burr themselves into those spaces to hibernate throughout the entire winter so that they can come back even stronger the next season. So how do we get ladybugs to naturally flock to our garden? Well, we've got to give them three, three things. First is a food source. Next is a place to raise their young. And finally, a place to stay over the winter. Let's cover the food source. First you want to have flowers, lots and lots of flowers, and some herbs, too. First you want to have some dill, flowering cilantro and parsley, and some fennel. All these plants are in the same plant family, the carrot plant family, and they're all great supporters of food. Food source for ladybugs. Next you want to have some flowers. Plants like cosmos and marigolds and yarrow produce tons of pollen that ladybugs love. And then finally, alyssum is literally a ladybug magnet. Now, once you provided food for your ladybugs, you want to think about creating a garden that's a little bit wild. You're going to need to leave some of the pests so that there's plenty for the ladybugs to eat. When ladybugs are deciding where to lay their eggs and they're looking for a lot of aphids nearby. So if you're constantly cleaning up your garden or spraying for pests, then ladybugs are never going to come and lay more ladybugs because they don't see a food source for their babies. So when you see aphids arrive, don't worry. It's a good sign that the ladybugs are on their way. Finally, you want to create a habitat for ladybugs to overwinter and stay all year long. At the beginning of winter, don't cut down all your plants to the soil level. Leave sticks and stems and flower heads so that ladybugs have plenty of places to burrow down, to hide, and to make it through the winter so that they come back in full force as soon as spring arrives. This ensures that over the years, the ladybug colonies will grow and multiply year over year so that your garden eventually is completely covered in ladybugs, protected from pests, and feeding you light creature crazy. By the way, if this idea of leaving a few aphids untouched in your garden freaks you out a little bit, then you got to learn my organic pest control system. I'll put a link to it right below this video. As soon as you watch through it, you'll never be freaked out by any kind of bug in your garden again. So you might be watching this and thinking, nicole, I've done all the things. I've got food for the ladybugs. There's aphids under my leaves, lots of aphids. And I even leave my garden a little untended through winter so that they can stay and hibernate. But there's still no ladybugs. Well, you might be putting something on your garden that's keeping the ladybugs from showing up. One could be pesticides. So hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as a pesticide. There's just an insecticide. Even something as common as neem oil can harm ladybug larvae and keep them from surviving in your garden. Even if you're not using pesticides, you might be using synthetic fertilizers. And believe it or not, those synthetic fertilizers actually alter the taste and the smell of all the flowers we've talked about planting for the ladybugs. So if you're using those kind of fertilizers or you're buying plants from garden centers that use them, that could be another reason why the ladybugs just aren't showing up for you. Ladybugs thrive in natural, organic environments, so that's exactly what we need to create for them in our garden. And you're going to find them showing up in in the masses. Now, if you bought ladybugs or you've been tempted to buy ladybugs. No judgment here. My first few seasons in the garden, I bought ladybugs every single time I saw them. We'd release them into the garden. My kids absolutely loved it. And about 30 minutes later, poof, they were all gone. So I'm hoping this video will save you a lot of money, frustration and some pretty sad kids. You don't need to buy ladybugs, you just need to host them. You good food, good shelter, no weird chemicals. The ladybugs are going to show up for you and they'll bring all their friends. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast.

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