For many people attracting wildlife into the garden means putting out food for the birds. That’s not a bad start, but it’s not hard to take it a step further, and you can get the kids involved!
There are a lot of creatures that can cause damage in the garden, but by providing a home for certain types of wildlife you can create a natural balance. Ladybugs are a gardener’s best friend. Although tiny, these instantly recognizable spotted creatures have a ravenous appetite for aphids and other tiny pests that cause damage to plants.
Did You Know?
- A single ladybug can eat up to 5,000 aphids in its lifetime
- Ladybug species vary in color, size, and number of spots
- There are a staggering 5,000 different ladybugs worldwide
- If frightened, ladybugs release smelly yellow goo to warn off predators
- Ladybugs hibernate over winter sometimes in colonies that number in the hundreds
Welcome ladybugs into your garden by providing a shelter and watch your pest disappear.
Here’s what you will need to build the perfect Ladybug Sanctuary:
Corrugated cardboard (1/4 in grooves)
Scissors
Plastic bottle, washed
Twigs
Decorations (optional)
1) Ask an adult to cut the top off a plastic bottle. Cut out a piece of the corrugated cardboard about the length of the bottle, remembering to cut across the grooves.
2) Roll the corrugated cardboard up as tightly as possible without crushing it. Place the rolled up cardboard into the plastic bottle until the sides match up.
3) Fill the center hole of the cardboard with twigs for the ladybugs to land on. Place the bottle in a dry, sheltered spot. Among conifers or shrubs are good places – and make sure the bottom of the bottle is higher than the opening to allow water to drain out.
You’ll be amazed at the results this gardening season, and come winter this sanctuary will keep the ladybugs snug, warm, and dry until they are ready to emerge again in the spring.
Share some of your gardening tips or activities you’ve done to bring more animals to the garden and you could win a copy of DK’s Wildlife Gardening. Gather will draw one participant to receive a free copy. Comments must be posted by Wednesday, May 20th.
Talk to other parents about gardening with your kids in Parenting.gather.com.
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Comments: 68
Thanks for the instructions on the ladybug house.
we also use no pesticides...we leave a huge bunch of brambles next to the creek and pond for wildlife and we plant grains, furits and such for the critters that want them. Our next project is to build bat houses :>}
hmm to answer ur question, rabbits love our garden, they are eating all the lettuce and things we grow.
We started a butterfly garden last year. This year we are adding mildweed to entice Monarchs! I'm really excited... the boys are going to have a lot of fun tracking the butterflies and learning about their lifecycles!
As for what we've done. We have a window feeder for the birds and we also made a recycled bird feeder which attracts birds all day long - despite there being very few trees around. :)
We plan to make another recycled feeder for the front window soon. :-) (It's something I thought up with a few things we had lying around the house.)
Would love the book. With a 5 year old that likes to garden and loves bugs this sounds like the perfect book for us.
how to keep pests as pet food
We welcome the bees by planting lots of flowers, including sunflowers.
We have a large bird bath in our front yard, in perfect view of our bay window. We also make birdfeeders out of pinecones (from our yard), peanut butter and bird seed. We love watching all the pretty birds that visit our yard as a result!
Making pinecone bird feeders... A photo essay
One organic way to keep down weeds is to place newpaper down as ground cover. In recent years, printing companies have switched to eco-friendly inks so that ink doesn't harm the environment if it leaks into the ground. So it is safe to put down your newspapers. Wet newspapers help retain water in the soil, keep the soil cool, and choke weeds. Eventually newspaper will decompose and add nutrients to the soil. So if you want more abundant flowers for your garden, you can use the newspapers with good conscience.
During the summer, we pick the tomatoes, chiles, herbs, etc and once a month we fertilize again.
We love to go and pick the tomatoes and then just gulp them down! He has been helping me plant seeds since 1999. He was 5 when he first started.
Angela tried growing cabbage, but we found out that it wasn't such a good idea in our part of Georgia. Her cabbage was eaten by cabbage moths. They are not only on the outside (which we pick off), but we found out they are all on the inside of the head also.
Now we have a opposum that is eating my pepper and tomato plants.
I like wildlife, but I didn't expect to be feeding it all our plants.
Inside our home we have two loose lizards at the moment, and I am secretly hoping that my husband cannot catch them, as it seems they are keeping the bugs out.
We have two bird feeders in the backyard and she loves to help me refill them which it seems like we do almost every single day, lol. I think next time I might try some different mix and see if I can attract any blue jays or other more colorful birdies. Right now we have a pair of cardinals that don't go far from our yard, but otherwise we mostly just have sparrows, grackles, starlings, and doves. Occasionally something else will stop by.
We also have tons of colorful flowers that bloom. Last summer we had tons of butterflies and bees all over because of all the flowers. So far this year I have seen a few bees and a few of those small white or yellow butterflies, but no others quite yet. We have some milkweed plants growing, so I am really hoping to see some monarchs this year!
We have a bird feeder, hummingbird feeder, all kinds of flowering plants for bees (to help our vegetable garden and fruit trees), fresh water available at the horses trough, and basically alot of space on the farm that is currently unused.
We have squirrels and I am thinking about setting up a feed station for them, I think they are adorable.
I think the area we planted last summer is about 20 ft x 35 ft. and this year we are going to push it out just a bit to add a row or two. So, the more bees we get here the better!
As a naturalist it has been easy to incorporate Wildlife into my garden design. In addition to providing ladybug houses, I have planted vector plants like angelica & dill to attract ladybugs; which are actually 'Ladybird beetles". I also leave those pesky Dandelions, Wild Carrotts, & Yarrow as they are also vector plants. I also add 'Wheast' which is a mixture of whey & yeast sprayed on plants to attract even more Lady beetles/Ladybugs. Part of m y yard is also just for butterflys with the accompaning vector plants for specific species of Butterflies, I have several ponds for frogs , & natural brush piles for shelter for small mammals.
We set out birdseed and leave large piles of brush in the back for the birds to nest in. We also plant trees and flowers that birds and butterflies enjoy.
We have planted a small flower garden that I use our coffee grounds in. The earthworms love it! Tons of earthworms make for happy kids....and cheap entertainment on those warm spring and summer days!
I never use pesticides in our yard or garden. I hate those things.
thanks for the instructions on the ladybug house.
We use anything special in our gardens. but we attract all kinds of critters
I want to teach my kids that it's possible to over come "problems" without harming anything that doesn't need to be harmed. :0)
When I moved in, my front garden was overrun with weeds and debris. I decided to plant a butterfly garden with an assortment of wildflowers from a local nursery. The wildflowers have a fragrance that attracts butterflies and small birds to the front of my house. This year, a mama bird built a nest in the bushes next to the garden and I had darling little chirps outside my office window for weeks :)
We also have a crab apple tree and leave all the fruit on the ground for the deer. At night, we look out our back windows and see three or four deer grazing on the crab apples. They are absolutely majestic in the moonlight!
The folks who owned the house before we moved in loved birds. They planted a variety of bushes that attract birds on one side of the house. There are so many birds in the bushes, my hubby goes out and tosses them bird seed everyday. Now they wait for him anxiously when it goes out with his morning coffee! He loves to get their chirped greetings.
Half the joy of being outdoors is sharing it with wildlife. My children LOVE ladybugs (and so do I) so we will definitely try this project.
I haven't got out the birdfeeders this year, but we don't use any pesticides in the yard. We have a fountain as a water feature, but since we have a drought going on, I've been trying to incorporate xeriscaping - plants that use less water. Many of these have flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies love though.
Beverly the newspaper sounds like a good idea ... I had heard that somewhere before. Great tips from others too.
Great post!
Thank you! :)
Our trick to bringing wildlife to the garden isn't a trick at all, but rather something we would like to prevent. We have a large dog, who isn't very bright, and befriends animals we would rather she scared off. Once, she was laying in our back yard under two trees, and possums were hanging over her head. Rather than barking or trying to get them to go away, she layed there and watched them. The possums threw things at her, shook nuts and leaves from the tree onto her head, and she just layed there and watched them.
Other times, she has layed there and watched squirrels eat her food, and not barked at all!
On the other hand, we do put out food for the birds and get great joy in having them in our yard. We'd love having other fun animals come out so we can watch them, too.
We keep a pile of fallen branches and anything we've trimmed from the bushes, in the corner of our yard as a shelter for wildlife. These sit in front of a full sized piece of plywood leaned up against the chain link fence. Last winter we think a deer used it. There was a branch of my lilac bush back there stripped of bark above my head, and you could see a large indentation in the dirt where something had hunkered down against the cold.
We use no pesticides, even though I would love to have the yard sprayed for ticks. The only natural way I know to get rid of them is to raise guinea hens, but the town won't let me, and my neighbors would rat me out. Somebody finds a tick on them every day here.
I make my own compost for the gardens. I have flowers, vegetables, blueberries, sour cherries, strawberries and raspberries. I have several small ponds for thirsty critters.
We do what we can for our wildlife here. They plowed down the woods across the main road and are putting warehouses in there. When they first started, it was so sad to see a dead possum, squirrel, or raccoon on the road every day. Poor things. They were there first! We would love to have the book for more new ideas!
Our project last week as to assemble natural items from the yard, place them in layers in a 2-liter soda bottle and observe as "compost" gradually forms (will take a couple of weeks). We were supposed to put some plastic items in to demonstrate that those things NEVER decay, but my nephew was adamant that he didn't want any plastic in HIS compost. : )
The winner of a copy of Wildlife Gardening is: Lynn P. !
Ha! My Grandmother (who I live with while my husband is in Iraq) has a TON of birdhouses and variety of plants all around her house and gardens. Our favorite visitors are the flying kind, and the squirrels.
I remember when I was younger and we would take a pinecone and paint it with peanut butter and then roll it in bird seed. Then we would sit back and watch it from the window to see what animals and birds it would attract.
*sigh* I miss those days!