4 Ways to Attract Lacewings to Your Garden
A thriving garden ecosystem is like a small world. Under our noses, a constant struggle for survival is going on. Fights for food and territory, mating rituals and love, unlikely friendships between species, clever defense mechanisms, and hunting patterns finely crafted over millennia – the complex interactions between insects, invertebrates, amphibians, birds, and mammals are fascinating. If only we had noticed. The intricate web of life can be established from small things.
A rose bush colonized by aphids, for example, supports an abundance of wildlife. Aphids are an excellent food for hoverfly and lady beetle larvae, and the honeydew they produce feeds ants, wasps, bumblebees, and other honey-sucking insects. Birds and bats prey on these and many other insects, while larger predators eat them. It's amazing how much life can go from tolerating a bunch of aphids on your roses to a seed!
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4 Ways to Support Lacewings in the Garden
To help lacewings establish in your landscape, make your garden as attractive as possible at all stages of life. If you create a good habitat for them, lacewings will overwinter nearby and return year after year to protect the garden.
1. Grow a variety of flowers
Mature lacewings need good sources of pollen and nectar to sustain them between mating and laying eggs.
Send a clear call to lacewings and other beloved pollinators by growing a variety of nectar-rich flowering plants. Native plants are great attractions, but more importantly, choose flat and wide flowers with an easily accessible flower disc to complement lacewings, especially lacewings, so that your flower gardens continue to bloom from early spring to late fall. Some of Lacewing's favorite flowers include coreopsis, cosmos, daisies, and several species of the Asteraceae family, such as sunflowers. They are fans of yarrow, angelica, dill, and other flat-top umbellifers.
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2. Water supply
Beneficial insects always stick close to food and water-rich habitats. Take your pollination paradise to the next level Lacewings, bees, butterflies, wasps, and other useful companions will appreciate a shallow pool where they can safely hydrate.
The principles of the bee watering station also apply to lacewings and other insects that cannot land directly on the surface of the water. Birdbaths, glass casserole dishes, Frisbees, or other shallow dishes can be used to drain the water—just pile some pebbles in the dish to keep them safe and dry while they drink.
3. Tolerate light aphid outbreaks
It may go against your every instinct as a gardener, but finding an aphid colony on your plants can be a wonderful thing.
Aphids are an important food source for lacewing, lady beetle, and hoverfly larvae. Without aphids, your plots may not be attractive to those who resist the urge to immediately spray infested plants with soapy water or neem oil. Instead, take a wait-and-see approach. If you don't find larvae on patrol, lacewings can help diagnose your aphid problem by lightly spraying the plants with sugar water. This will simulate honeydew, which will increase the number and activity of adult lacewings in the garden.
To make a honey solution, dissolve 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1 cup of water and gently spray the leaves of the plant.
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4. Purchase the Lacewing Starter Community
Lacewings provide such excellent biological pest control that they are readily available for purchase from gardening catalogs and websites. The common green lacewing (Chrysoperla rufilabris) is the species you want to see for sale. This lacewing is widespread throughout North America and its larvae are particularly useful in preying on large numbers of agricultural pests. Lacewing larvae are wingless and will stay where you release them if there are insects to prey on.
Usually sold by the thousand, you can buy common green lacewing eggs or freshly hatched larvae. Upon receipt, lacewings should be released immediately into the garden or greenhouse. To seed the garden with lacewing eggs, you can sprinkle them on leaf whorls or in paper cups between rows. Distribute them throughout the landscape, in ornamental and vegetable gardens. When you buy lacewings as larvae, they are separated into honeycomb cells so they don't cannibalize each other. To release them, open the packaging slightly and shake the larvae onto your plants. Spread them well to give better coverage to your garden.
Release lacewings early in the season to give them time to establish so that subsequent generations can hatch. Some prefer to do a second or third release at two-week intervals to ensure continuous pest control.
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