Ladybugs naturally keep insects off your plants, veggies and flowers

Ladybugs

We’ve all seen friendly The cute little red and black bugs either crawling around or flittering about in the air and most of us have taken a moment to stop and look them over and think they are kind of neat.

I’ve even seen a Volkswagen or two painted up like the insect. But there is more to the cute little bug than being adorable.

The commonly approved method for a home garden owner to control his pest problem is the use of chemicals. As of late, more folks are becoming environmentally friendly and as such looking for other ways to deal with common pests like spider mites and aphids and such.

You certainly could employ the likes of the Trichogramma Wasp or other foul sounding insect and get a good result but most folks dislike such insects so enter the ladybug.

The Lady Bugs is in fact a Ladybird Beetle and has a wonderful appetite for such things as mites, aphids, whiteflies, chinch bugs and many other soft-bodied insects but it doesn’t stop there.

The ladybug also enjoys munching away at the un-hatched eggs that stop future generations of the pests before they begin. There are more than one species of Ladybirds .

Actually, there are well over one hundred of them. They can be purchased at many garden centers and are simply released into the garden where they do the magic they do.

How much can one little LadyBug possible eat?

The answer to that may be quite surprising to you. They can consume as many as five thousand aphids over its lifespan. It goes like this, a fully mature bug will lay up to four dozen eggs per day.

Once these eggs hatch the larvae will each consume somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty aphids a day until such time as they reach maturity somewhere around twenty one days later.

At that point each of those females begins laying another four dozen or so eggs and we are off and running again. You get the picture; sort a renewable way to remove the unwanted pests from your precious garden. Not exactly something a pesticide can do.

It will need re-application at regular intervals so you will spend more time working in your garden-removing pests than walking through enjoying your garden, as you will by putting the bugs to work for you.

So, the bottom line here is that there are a number of ways you can rid your loving garden of the many forms of pests that try and destroy it. Chemicals, picking them off by hand or utilizing the help of some of the beneficial insects like this insect.

I think that as you look over the many options available you will agree that this cute bug is the option that makes the most sense.

They do a great job, they do not hurt the environment they are safe to and for humans and, maybe most importantly, to put it in the form of an overused euphemism, they are cute as a bug!!!

Top of ladybugs page

Have A Great Story About This Topic?

Do you have a great photo, story, question or comment about this plant? Share it today!