If you want to manage your garden in a species-rich and biologically balanced manner, it is a good idea to encourage beneficial insects such as ladybirds. The best way to do this is to provide them with an appropriate habitat, thereby encouraging them to reproduce.
Ladybugs don't nest, they lay their eggs on leaves
What ladybugs need
To help ladybugs reproduce in the garden, you should offer them certain things and spare them others. The following things are on the positive list:
- Garden design that is as natural as possible and rich in plants and animals
- Cultivate certain flowering plants that serve as a secondary source of food for ladybirds: dandelion, chives, fennel, caraway, calendula, dill, poppies)
- Create hiding places to hibernate
What you can do to not make it more difficult for ladybugs to settle and multiply is:
- Keeping ants in check (because they defend aphids)
- Do not use chemical sprays
A garden design that naturally unites as many plants and animals as possible also offers better conditions for ladybirds. In a diverse biotope they find a much richer supply of food than in a garden that is subject to human ideas of form, where nothing is allowed to grow freely and poisonous pesticides or insecticides are used. With favorable feeding conditions, the ladybugs are of course more willing to stay and also in better shape for overwintering and reproduction in the following year.
A nest made for ladybugs
One cannot speak of nesting aids in the case of ladybirds because they do not nest during reproduction. Rather, the females lay their eggs on the underside of leaves or trunks, where the larvae are then left to themselves. They have to hatch and develop on their own, there is no parental rearing culture for ladybirds.
Nevertheless, you can promote the reproduction of ladybugs. If you take the above measures to heart, you are actually already there. Because the better the general conditions for the beetles, the more likely they are to overwinter on the spot and reproduce next spring.
Therefore, offer them suitable shelters for the cold season in particular: leave the leaves that have been put together in a heap in autumn and, if you don't already have a natural stone wall in the garden, build a heap of stones. The beetles find ideal conditions for a successful hibernation in leaves that keep them warm and in cracks between stones.