I have a really cute little ladybug house that I got at a garage sale. I've never seen a ladybug in it, so I consider it more of a decorative item.

At our house, the ladybugs like to overwinter on the sunporch (we leave the door open a lot in the winter so the cats can come and go but we close the door at night to keep wild varmints out), in the potting shed, in the garage, etc. Some years they try to come inside, but since we recaulked the windows and put new weatherstripping on the doors, I haven't had as many come inside the last couple of years. The sunporch is full of them in winter though, and on warm winter days they come out and crawl around on the windows.

Back when they used to come inside, I'd vacuum them up and empty them outside. Most of them them survived being vacuumed up in our vaccum cleaner, by the way.

I put water out in pie pans, disposable aluminum roasting pans, etc. How many pans I put out and how large they are just depends. If the creeks and ponds all dry up, like they did in 2011, I fill up a child's wading pool with water about a foot deep for the deer, bobcats, coyotes and other larger animals, but leave the smaller pans out for the rabbits, etc.

I have an actual birdbath in the back garden, and we have a small retention pond we dug at the northeast end of the big garden out front. It catches rainfall and holds it a good long while so it attracts every kind of wildlife you can imagine, but I also keep a pan of water in the adjacent garden because some of the turtles live in the garden and eat bugs, and they have a hard time finding the gate and finding their way out of the garden. Sometimes I pick them up and carry them to the retention pond, and it makes them mad and they practically race me back to the garden gate, so it is just easier to put water in the garden for them.

To attract birds, I feed them. We have bird feeders for the song birds that prefer feeders, but I also scatter handfuls of hen scratch, cracked corn and sunflower seeds in specific areas for birds like the doves that would rather eat from the ground. I also will cut open a melon or cucumber for them occasionally, but they have to fight the chickens for those.

It is most important to feed them in winter. If you feed them in winter and in early spring, they will not desert you in the growing season. They will stay pretty busy eating bugs for you, so you really don't have to feed them that much when insects, native berries, native grass and wildflower seeds, etc., are available for them.

I like to leave a few lettuce plants for the birds in spring. After they bolt and go to seed, some songbirds like finches love to eat the seeds. I do the same thing with most cool-season veggies.

I am very careful to leave native berry-producing plants (including poison ivy and greenbrier, as well as native blackberries) alone when clearing brush on the edge of the woodland. They provide tons of food for the wild things.

When I processing lots of produce, like when I'm making pickles, or canning peppers or tomatoes, I put all the discarded parts of the fruits/veggies right on top of the compost pile. The wild animals check it daily and eat what they want. If I didn't want the wild things to have the food, I'd use a spade to bury it under something else in the pile, but I'd rather the little critters have the food.

We never had a squirrel problem when Sheila the Squirrel-Chasing Dog was alive, and we still don't really have a problem with them now. You'd think they would eat my tomatoes like crazy, but they don't. I put out peanuts in the shell and sunflower seeds near the one pond that still has water and the squirrels come there every day to eat. I also see them sneak into the chicken runs and steal henscratch, but sometimes a rooster will come and chase them off. By giving them something they like to eat, and by having water available for them, I distract them so that they rarely, if ever, eat my tomatoes or melons. I do have trouble with them on the fruit trees, but luckily the trees are highly productive in the years when a late freeze doesn't get all the fruit, so it isn't a crisis if the squirrels get a few peaches or plums. I've never had them bother the figs, but the figs are near the fenced dog run, and that might be why.

Is there something specific you're trying to attract? For me, just general water and occasional treats of food attract everything I want, and also attract a few things I don't want....but you've gotta take the bad with the good sometimes.

If you're wanting to attract beneficial insects, for that I plant oodles of flowers they like, which often means flowers that have many tiny, tiny flowers like sweet alyssym, dill, chamomile, letting cilantro flower for them, etc. Nasturtiums also attract lots of bees and other beneficial insects, and many flying insects seem drawn to lantana and zinnias. Tall verbena (Verbena bonariensis) and native yarrow attract lots of beneficial insects, and so does tansy. Buckwheat and clover also attract beneficial insects and enrich the soil too.

We have two purple martin houses and have birds in them every year. Next year I want to add a third one and put it closer to the new back garden than the two original houses are.

A bat house will attract bats. I love watching them fly around at twilight, swooping up tons of flying insects.

Dawn

Dawn, thanks for the ideas. I want tor try to help the wild life ( except deer, coons, squrillels, rabbits and crows). I already have more than my share of those, although I really don't mind them if they stay out of the garden.

Larry

Larry,

You're welcome. Wildlife of all kinds in the yard and garden is one of my favorite topics.

I have a love/hate relationship with the deer, but in general one of the things I love about our property is that it has a huge population of wildlife and I do everything I can to encourage the wildlife to hang around.

Now that I have successfully fenced them out of four separate garden plots, they are easier to love, though they still nibble the plants I grow on the garden fences. Of course, when you plant something inside the garden and let it climb the fence, you know that wildlife will eat it, so you're setting yourself up for that.

We feed the deer during hard times, which usually means the worst of winter, but also fed them in the summer of 2012. Some of the babies we fed that summer still come here regularly to check the compost piles for yummy goodies, or to drink water from the wading pool, pans, etc. For a long time we had a deer herd that lived on our land and I knew all them by sight, but ever since the cougar year, no deer live on our land year-round as far as I know, so the ones we see are just transients. We do see the same ones regularly though.

I love the rabbits, but there again it is because they are fenced out of the garden. We must not have many, if any, bobcats and coyotes around this year because we have got cottontail rabbits all over the place. It is not unusual to see 8 or 10 of them out in the back yard and the back pasture near the back compost pile in the evenings. They have been coming out as early as 5 or 6 p.m. and it is hysterical to watch them run and jump and play. They remind me of playful kittens. I never realized how much they play but that's partly because we rarely have this many around. Whatever usually kills them isn't killing them yet.

I could live without the squirrels but with a 10-acre woodland full of native oaks, pecans and other nut-bearing trees, it isn't likely that we'll ever be squirrel-free. They aren't much trouble though. They used to plant lots of nuts in my garden, which of course meant I spend spring pulling up the sprouting tree seedlings, but once we raised the fence to 8' tall, they just stopped coming into the garden very much.

Crows can be annoying, except for this: if you put out cracked corn on the ground for the doves, the crows will come a couple of times a day and eat it. They don't bother the doves, they don't chase them off, etc. They just want to eat a little corn. However, they are territorial and they don't want anyone else in their territory, so they relentlessly chase away the hawks and owls. I don't mind that they chase away the hawks, because our chickens free-range and the hawks prey upon them. We haven't lost a single chicken to a hawk this year, and the crows get all the credit for that. I kinda wish they wouldn't chase away the owls, because we used to have owls that would sit in the pecan tree in our front yard and hunt rodents all night long, and I kinda miss hearing them hooting out there at night.

I have no use for coons whatsoever (at least the possums eat venomous snakes) because they normally go after my corn relentlessly. However, a serious outbreak of canine distemper in Texas has hit the coon population very hard this year and I kinda think it must have crossed the river and affected coons here too, because I have seen only 1 raccoon on our property this year, and I saw it only once and it didn't get any corn even though we had corn about ready to harvest when I saw it here in the yard. Most years we have to fight the coons for every single ear of corn, and some years they get it all, but this year we didn't lose a single ear to them, and I had 5 varieties spread out over three separate garden plots, all of then fenced with tall fences that usually do not deter the coons.

I love the wildlife in general and spend a lot of time in summer and in wickedly cold/icy winter weather making sure the wildlife has water available, and sometimes food as well. It is not unusual on a summer evening for me to glance out the back window and see deer, crows, rabbits, possums and armadillos all in the yard and pastures, more or less hanging out together. I love all the little things too---the hummingbirds, ladybugs, dragonflies, damselflies, bees, butterflies, moths, etc. I grow tons of flowers and herbs to attract them.

Sometimes if you stand and look at the garden in the evening from afar, it would be easy to say "well, nothing going on in there". Then, if you walk into it, you find all the little flying things visiting flowers. You'll see frogs, toads, lizards, turtles and even an occasional snake. There might be rabbits loitering outside the garden fence, trying to find a low-hanging cucumber growing on the outside of the fence so they can nibble on it. A deer might be standing on the edge of the nearby woodland stomping its foot and blowing air through its nostrils trying to scare me out of the garden because it wants to come nibble at the bean foliage and cucumber foliage on the fence. The purple martins will be flying round and round in circles overhead, hunting for insects to eat, and if you look towards the outdoor security light, a bat might be there looking for bugs. For me, a late afternoon or early evening in the garden is like a visit to a wildlife refuge. I'm always astonished at all the activity out there. Usually I am happier to see the larger wildlife than they are to see me. The rabbits are really used to my presence and I can walk past them and get as close as 4 or 5' from them and they just freeze in place and wait for me to walk on. The deer, on the other hand, never seem to get used to seeing me in the garden and have a fit when I am out there and they want me to "go away". I am always careful to close the gate behind me so a territorial deer cannot come into the garden and challenge me.

We have, at various times, been visited by other wildlife, much of it not desirable. We had far too many coyotes in our early years here. We always have too many skunks. We fought beavers for a couple of years and they were just wiping out all our small trees (and some huge ones too that they tried to fell, although they failed, but still killed the trees) along the banks of one of our creeks. On the other hand, I'd never seen ring-tailed cats in the wild until we moved here, and thought seeing them was pretty cool, except for the fact that they were coming to the chicken coop and chicken run to attempt to prey upon the chickens.

When we first bought this place, I saw the first horned toad in the wild that I'd seen in well over a decade, and that was cool. We leave all the harvester ant beds alone no matter where they pop up because the horned toads eat them.

I'd never seen a glass lizard until we moved here. I could go on and on. We wanted to live among the wildlife, which is one reason we looked for land to buy that was pretty far off the beaten path, although there are some times when I have felt like we have too much wildlife of the wrong kind. The last few years, it has been incredibly difficult to watch the wildlife struggle to survive through the hot summers, so I have tried to plant tons of extra cucumbers, Armenian cukes and melons of all kinds just so I have extras to feed the wildlife. I let the cukes get huge and then slice them open and put them on the ground. Oodles of little birds, big birds, rabbits, deer, etc. will eat those cukes. Now that I've made just about all the pickles I want to make, I could pull the cucumber plants, but I've decided to leave them for as long as they last and use the cucumbers for the wild things.

My favorite sound, and one I've heard almost daily this year, is the gobble of the wild turkeys. Some years we have a lot of them around, some years we don't. This is a really great wild turkey year and I've been enjoying them, although I hear them a lot more than I see them. For a while, we had a confused wild turkey tom who apparently couldn't find a female. He'd come to our driveway and stand near the chicken coop and do that wild turkey mating dance. The chickens were not impressed and the rooster was especially unhappy to see him, but I enjoyed watching it try to win the affections of a hen. The wild turkeys also occasionally come to the area where I put out cracked corn for the doves, and they're welcome to eat there whenever they choose.

One of the biggest surprises here is the plentiful population of roadrunners. I see them almost every day. They don't come into the yard itself often, but in 2011 and also in 2008, they would come and 'steal' hen scratch and cracked corn in the middle of the hot afternoon when nothing else (in terms of wildlife) was stirring. That was a sign to me that they just weren't finding any of their usual food, and I was glad we had something available that they wanted to eat.

Dawn

We used to always have a very big nest of them in an old patch of iris. You could separate the leaves and it was solid orange in there every year. My guess is they find a place that suits their needs and the choice is up to them. IMHO, a "Ladybug House" is probably a waste of money. These critters just choose where they like and I cannot imagine them realizing a storebought house was for them to live in even if it had a lady bug painted or designated label on it. It would be just my luck to be putting in yet another new Wasp Motel. My birdhouses always went that route.

If you have plants that really attract aphids, that might do it, I know they attract the Lacewings. Plentiful food sources would be definite attractors.

Here's an idea. Plant lots of milkweed. Aphids always infest my milkweeds and it doesn't matter what kind of milkweed, aphids don't seem to discriminate. This way, you'll be helping the monarchs and providing lady bug food at the same time.

I would like to provide some type of shelter. It seems that they always collect around a warm area in the fall. What I have in mind would not be large enough to appeal to wasp, nor would it be available the time of year the wasp would want it. I also like the Idea of attracting some type of food for them.

Larry

I looked up where they shelter in winter on google. Loose bark on trees, shrubs, under leaves and sometimes in homes or in cracks of wood on homes. Sounds like that tree you had was a perfect habitat because they often hibernate in trees. It also said they like to nest near aphids which is their main source of food. Maybe a simple log would work or a woodpile?

About keeping wasps out, they will get into any uncaulked crack of a window to crawl into the wall at my old house. They can then show up flying around in any room of the house. They love those little holes in the big table umbrella post that you stick the little metal thing into to adjust the height. There seems to no hole, door jam or any dry place possibility out there with a large hole or small hole or crack or slat they won't use here.

The loose bark on a log is the type of environment I was hoping to create.

Larry,

The big thing with ladybugs is that they are great at finding their own shelter. I just put up the little lady bug house for fun and to have as a cute decorative item, not because I ever expected them to use it.

When we clear pathways through the woods or clear brush away from the edge of the woods, we make permanent brush piles in out-of-the-way locations that you don't really notice from the house. All kinds of critters, from insects to birds to snakes to mammals, shelter in those brush piles. Our current biggest brush pile is about 6' wide and 30' long, but we have smaller ones too. I'd rather pile up that wood and brush neatly in an out-of-the-way place and let it just eventually decompose and improve the soil than burn it to get rid of it. It is amazing how many creatures shelter in those brush piles. When it snows, there's every kind of animal track coming and going in and out of those brush piles, birds coming in and out, etc. I imagine lots of ladybugs shelter in the brush piles too since the base of each brush pile is logs from dead trees we've cut down. Since we're on acreage in the country, we have plenty of space to build brush piles for the wildlife. We usually build the brush piles in eroded gullies, and they serve a dual purpose of not only sheltering wildlife but also slowing the erosion and helping to heal the land. It takes years and years for a brush pile to fully decompose, but when it does, then the native plants fill in that area and grow and the eroded area has been restored to native grassland or woodland, depending what area of the property it is on. We also leave dead trees standing in the woods as long as they are far enough away from a structure, a path or a fence that we don't have to worry about them falling down on top of someone or something. Needless to say, lots of wildlife shelters in those dead trees. Everything we do on our property is done with the wildlife in mind. We always are conscious of their need to have food, water and shelter year-round.

My favorite thing about the sun porch on the west side of the house is that the lady bugs now shelter on it in the winter, instead of trying to come inside and hang out in the laundry room, which was their favorite spot before.

To keep the ladybugs around in spring, you have to have food available for them. I always plant a seed mix of flowering plants that attract beneficial insects. Different companies sell the seed mixes under different names. Often they are called "Insectary Mix" or "Beneficial Insect Mix", and many of them have very small flowers because that is what the beneficials, as a group, tend to prefer. If your ladybug population builds up really high some summers and they run out of tasty little aphids and mites to eat, then they will move on elsewhere looking for their favorite food. This has been a great ladybug year, but I'm not seeing as many now as I was 4-6 weeks ago, likely because they have devoured all the little pests they like to eat. Since we have pastures full of plants that also attract pests, our lady bugs never go far. Even when I think they are "gone" because I'm not seeing them, they suddenly will appear in massive numbers to seek shelter in the barn-style garage, potting shed, greenhouse, sun porch, etc. as the first really cold weather approaches. I try to keep a few plants in pots on the sun porch and in the greenhouse for them year-round so they can, presumably, find some sort of little pests on the plants to eat. While they normally are dormant to semi-dormant in winter, they'll come out of hiding on a warm, sunny winter day and crawl all over the sun porch looking, presumably, for food or drink.

We generally have something in bloom almost year-round, so there's always something for them, although in winter there's not as much as there is the rest of the year. Last year it didn't get too cold, and I had a huge winter garden and the lady bugs were out a surprising amount of the time on the kale, collards,turnips, beets, broccoli, lettuce, ornamental cabbage and kale, pansies, violas, etc. I didn't really see many pests at all on all the leafy crops, except for an occasional leaf miner, so I assume the lady bugs were gobbling up any pests that were around, even though it was winter. In my veggie garden, they often shelter in the winter mulch, and on the cedar arbor where the coral honeysuckle grows. In our winter climate down here in southern OK, the coral honeysuckle is practically evergreen, and often is in bloom when nothing else is and they spend a lot of time on it and around it. I kept a handful of tomato plants in pots in the unheated greenhouse where the plants survived until a really cold night when the temperatures went down to 18 degrees outside and finally hit freezing in the greenhouse. For as long as those tomato plants were green, there were ladybugs on them.

I also see ladybugs pretty often in fall and winter on any green cover crops I've grown, like vetch or clover. We overseed our lawn with rye every winter, and it keeps a lot of the wild things happy and fed too, and the last few years we have sown a deer forage plot in late summer so that the deer have some things to eat in fall and winter.

People always tell us we are lucky to be surrounded by such abundant wildlife and I think that we are, but it requires a lot more than luck. We do a lot to provide the wildlife with food, water and shelter year-round and we try to avoid doing things that hurt them. It is amazing how much that everything, from the tiniest lady bug to the biggest deer, will come around, hang around and share your property with you as long as you make them feel welcome.

Dawn

Dawn, some critters I don't have room for, and deer is one of those critters. We have a little yorkie that we keep in the house that tries to let us know if we have critters around. This morning about 2:00 AM he started throwing a fit. I got the spotlight and went outside to scare away two deer and a stray cat. I have not put my electric fence up this year, but I may have to. I expect the green garden is inviting critter day and night.

Larry