Ladybugs Winter Shelter

This is a homemade ladybug house my brother sent me one year for Christmas.

Ladybugs Winter Shelter

My one-acre limestone hillside garden has been chemical-free for decades so I have a pretty busy garden ecosystem that includes native ladybugs. One Christmas my brother sent me a couple of ladybug houses to encourage more ladybugs.

Excited to have the new housing, I did some research to find out how best to set them up. Besides placing them low to the ground, I found out I needed to fill them with leaves, which is where ladybugs like to winter over.

Ladybugs winter over in leaf litter so ladybug houses need leaves inside to encourage tenants.

Now my ladybug house is ready to welcome native ladybugs looking for housing.

One of my neighbors has a house full of ladybugs but it turns out they are not the welcomed kind. She has the Asian ladybugs, a cousin of the native ladybugs. Can you tell the difference?

Native ladybug or Asian ladybug? See the M on the head? This is an Asian lady beetle.

There are more than 400 native ladybugs in North America but they are harder to find as invasive species like Asian ladybugs move in, according to the Xerxes Society.

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Charlotte