Gettysburg Agway-Bugs

Spring

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Butterfly Gardening

Adding the beauty and color of butterflies to your landscape can be an enjoyable and educational experience. A successful butterfly garden is one that contains all the components that butterflies need for food, shelter and breeding, while providing all the beauty and design that appeal to the gardener.

Beckoning Butterflies to Your Yard
Butterflies can feed in shade, but they must have sun to keep their bodies warm enough to fly. Butterflies can only fly effectively when their body temperature is about 85º to 100º F. When the air is cooler, they will bask in the sun to warm themselves to effective flight temperature.

If your yard is basically shady, you can help butterflies by putting some flat dark colored stones or evergreens in spots that get early morning sun. Watch the butterflies as they use the sun-warmed stones and evergreens to absorb heat and start flying earlier.

Provide Shelter
Build your butterfly garden in a location that is sheltered from the wind. This will help in two ways: breezes do not cool butterflies, and they do not have to expend extra energy fighting wind currents as they try to feed, mate and lay eggs. If possible, provide a windbreak with tall shrubs, vines and trees.

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere
Next, grow sweetly scented flowers that produce nectar. Flower nectar is a primary food source for most butterflies. Butterflies, like most birds, take nectar from a wide variety of annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, vines and herbs.

Be sure your garden offers nectar-producing flowers throughout the blooming season so that butterflies can always find food. Also, grow nectar plants of varying heights - smaller species of butterflies tend to stay low, while larger species prefer to stay high while feeding.

When planting flowers, be sure to provide a variety that will be available from early summer to late fall. Group them together - given a choice, butterflies usually choose those that are abundant. Some good plants to incorporate into your butterfly garden include buddleia, asters, globe thistles, phloxes, cone flowers, marigolds, black-eyed Susans, lantanas, zinnias, rudbeckias, salvias and butterfly weeds.

Puddling
Butterflies like to drink and obtain essential nutrients and minerals from the moist areas around puddled water. Streams, ponds, bird baths, and small shallow water basins, either natural or artificial, are necessary assets to your butterfly garden.

Attractive Feeders
In addition to sweet nectar-producing plants, trees and flowers, Gettysburg Agway carries brightly colored specialty butterfly feeders and sweet-tasting nectar, too.

Hibernation House
When winter comes, some butterflies need to find a suitable place to hibernate. In addition to tree crevices, under bark or in log piles, you can provide a hibernation house. Hibernation houses have narrow, vertical holes cut into them that are small enough to keep predators out, but large enough for butterflies to enter and leave. Always place a hibernation house in a shady area of the garden so that butterflies will not become overheated inside.

A Natural Garden
A natural setting is both attractive and essential to butterflies' well-being. Pesticides and herbicides should not be used in a butterfly garden.

ladybug Benefits of Ladybugs in Your Garden

Adult ladybugs, or ladybird beetles, are typically a brick red or orange with black markings. But some are black, often with red markings. Their larvae look like miniature alligators, and they live up to their appearance by being voracious predators of many garden pests. That's why ladybugs are among the most visible and best known beneficial predatory insects.

There are more than 450 species of ladybugs in North America. Some are native and some have been introduced from other countries. Most North American species are beneficial, with both adults and larvae feeding primarily on aphids. They also feed on mites, small insects, and insect eggs. (There are two pest species in the group: the Mexican bean beetle and the squash beetle. Both adults and larvae of those species feed on plants.)

Most ladybugs found in gardens are aphid predators. Some species prefer only certain aphids while others will seek out and dine on most any kind of aphid. Some prefer mite or scale species. If aphids are scarce, they'll feed on the eggs of moths, beetles, mites, thrips, and other small insects, as well as pollen and nectar. Not as delicate and refined as they seem, they'll also feed on their own young.

Because of their ability to survive on other prey when aphids are in short supply, ladybugs are particularly valuable natural enemies of pests.

Ladybugs overwinter as adults, often in aggregations along hedgerows, beneath leaf litter, under rocks and bark, and in other protected places, including buildings. In spring, the adults disperse in search of prey and suitable egg laying sites. This dispersal trait, especially strong in migratory species such as the commercially available convergent lady beetle, affects the reliability of released adult beetles.

To encourage these beneficial insects into your garden, supply them with food and moisture. Small and shallow-faced flowers provide adults easy access to nectar and pollen: Plant alyssum, herbs from the dill and mint families, and flowers from the daisy family.

Photography by USDA

Attracting Lacewings

Lacewings are found throughout the United States. They are predators of many garden pests including aphids, thrips, mites, whiteflies, and other small, soft-bodied pests and their eggs.

The larvae are yellowish-gray, mottled with brown, and have large mouthparts. They reach 3/8 inch long before pupation. These are commonly called aphid lions, and they are voracious feeders, eating 200 or more pests or their eggs per week between hatching and pupation.

Most adult lacewings get their sustenance from pollen, nectar, and the honeydew produced by aphids and scales. Some species also feed upon pests.

Adults of the most common species are slender and bright green, with delicate veined wings and long antennae. Eggs of lacewings are easy to identify, as they are laid in groups with each egg held aloft on a threadlike stalk. Eggs hatch in 3 to 5 days; the larval stage lasts 2 or three weeks. Pupation lasts about 5 days, and adults live for 4 to 6 weeks. Females lay about 200 eggs in that time. There are 3 to 4 generations per year.

Attract lacewings to your garden with food and moisture: Small and shallow-faced flowers provide adult lacewings easy access to pollen and nectar. Plant alyssum, herbs from the dill family, and flowers from the daisy family. If you have a bird bath or pool in your garden, place stones in the water so lacewings have a place to land and drink safely.

Photography by USDA

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