A responsible gardener will make sure to be informed about how to keep their garden healthy. If that gardener is also wanting to stick with organic, they will need to learn many of the tricks of the organic trade. One of these tricks is knowing bugs. What not nearly enough people know is that there are many bugs that actually do your garden a lot of good.

Helpful Tip: Don't use any chemcial fertilizers if you use any beneficial bugs, it will kill them.

Ladybugs (Hippodarmia Convergens)

Ladybugs are among the most loved and utilized of the beneficial insects. Best of all, both the adults and the larvae feed on aphids (their prey of choice), corn borer, cabbage looper, spidermites, thrips, scale and other pests that inhabit your roses, shrubs, trees, and flowers.

Ladybugs can be purchased at Ace, we store them packaged in a special fridge until you are ready to pick them up.

Lady bugs can be put out almost anytime of the year except if the temperatures are consistently below freezing in the daytime.  Most people put them out from March through October.  If there is a food source for them then they can be released.

Placing them in your garden

When you get home, make sure to water your garden and release the ladybugs at night, this will lessen the chance they will end up in your neighbors garden.

Kills aphids and spider mites, are inexpensive compared to chemical pesticides and won't harm people, plants, or pets.

Protects: Flowers, Shrubs, Gardens, Trees and more. 

Praying Mantis

Praying Mantises will eat almost anything that they can catch... and they can catch most anything. They are particularly effective on flies, mosquitoes, bees, wasps, craneflies, grasshoppers and crickets.  Place your egg case outdoors  in a spot where it will be safe from birds, and rodents. 

Praying Mantises can also be purchased at Ace, we store the egg cases in packages in a special fridge.

The tiny mantis will hatch after the summer temperatures have been above 75 for about three weeks.  The mantis are very fragile when they first emerge, and will dispurse quickly.  Look for them as they grow throughout the summer.  

Placing them in your garden

The surface of the egg case should be slightly sticky. Oils from your hands can damage the egg so only touch it with clean latex or gardening gloves.

Affix the egg case to the side of a leafy plant, preferably outside of direct sunlight. When they first hatch the little mantids will crawl out of the egg case and hang on silk-like threads from the bottom of the case until they dry out. This takes about an hour, after which they disperse.

In the fall the female will build her egg around small twig and branches.  The egg case will winter over, and a new hatch will begin again in the spring.

Please call or come by the store if you have any questions about beneficial bugs!