How To Attract Beneficial Green Lacewings To Your Garden

Green lacewings look like they could be garden pests, but they're actually among the good bugs that'll chase pests from your garden. Up close, they are rather attractive visitors to your garden, with their graceful, long bodies and delicate wings in a veined, lacy pattern. Worldwide, more than 4,000 lacewing species can be found, with up to 90 of them in the United States. On the garden menu for lacewings are aphids, thrips, beetles, small caterpillars, soft scales, pear psylla, spider mites, whitefly nymphs, and mealybugs. 

Interestingly, adult green lacewings don't partake in the carnivorous feast; it's the larvae—said to look like miniature alligators—who munch on prey. Adult green lacewings eat nectar, honeydew and pollen, though their brown lacewing counterparts are predators. Adults lay eggs near aphid infestations, and the hatching larvae go immediately to work eating the aphids.

Clearly, planting flowers is an effective way to attract green lacewings since flowering plants host pests lacewing larvae like to eat and produce nectar and pollen for adults. Consider flowers to grow from seed that attract beneficial insects to the garden. It's not quite as simple as just planting flowers, though, because diversity of plantings is the real key to attracting lacewings and other beneficial insects. Diversity also means that flowers should be available at all times during the growing season. Annuals tend to have longer blooming periods than perennials, so should be included in your lacewing-attracting garden. Nectar accessibility is important and depends on characteristics such as size and shape of the flower. Small flowers or flowers comprised of clusters of smaller flowers make nectar accessible for beneficial insects.

Small flowers suit beneficial insects that tend to have short mouthparts. Optional varieties include members of the plant families Umbelliferae (Queen Anne's lace, dill, cilantro), Compositae (asters, coneflowers, coreopsis), Brassicaceae (radish, mustard, broccoli), and Polygonaceae (buckwheats and common knotweed). The idea is to plant flowers that attract helpful insects close to the flowering plants you want to shield from harmful pests.  It may seem counterintuitive, but actually allowing a small number of aphids on your plants, especially at the beginning of the season when food is scarce, can attract lacewings.

Providing a food source is not the only way to attract good insects into your yard and garden. They also need water, so consider putting out a shallow container of water with pebbles that lacewings can land on while quenching their thirst. Lacewings seek shelter and habitat, especially in the winter, often available with legume plants like clover and hairy vetch that serve as cover crops. You can also allow leaves, stems, and other plant debris to remain in the garden over the winter for beneficial insects. Importantly, you will have greater success attracting lacewings and other good bugs if you forego use of chemical pesticides.