Known for their dramatic appearance and strong flying abilities, dragonflies are one of the most wonderful, beautiful, and mysterious insects. Unlike most insects, like butterflies and bees, that you see feasting on nectar and pollen in your garden, surprisingly, dragonflies are carnivorous.
They are excellent for keeping mosquito populations in check — they eat both adult mosquitoes and mosquito larvae.
Welcoming these fanciful flyers into your garden can help with mosquito control, and one of the secrets to inviting dragonflies is growing flowers they are attracted to. In this regard, you may want to know whether dragonflies like lavender.
Well, lavender plants are a favorite of many insects, including butterflies and dragonflies. Read on to know more about dragonflies and how to attract them to your garden.
About Dragonflies
Dragonflies are considered good insects as they are harmless (they do not sting or bite) and eat “bad” insects. Adult dragonflies consume their own weight in bugs each half-hour, making them a great asset to your garden, especially if you have a lot of pesky skeeters around.
Their life-cycle consists of two distinct stages. Female dragonflies usually lay eggs in water or boggy, wet areas after breeding. In about three weeks, the eggs hatch into nymphs, aquatic larvae that stay in the water for about 1-3 years as they develop. Once developed, the nymphs will crawl out of the water and shed their skin, which marks the end of the metamorphosis.
Because they are harmless, dragonflies are useful creatures that you can consider attracting to your garden. Even so, attracting them takes more than planting sweet-smelling flowers.
These beautiful winged creatures are very sensitive to air pollution, so you need to ensure little to no pollution. Having many dragonflies could mean that you have good quality air.
Are Dragonflies attracted to lavender?
Growing lavender is an easy way to add a midsummer pop of color to your garden. Besides the lavender’s beautiful purple-pink flowers, many outdoor enthusiasts are fascinated by its lovely scent, which is thought to relieve stress, anxiety, depression, and migraines.
But what about its fragrance attracting dragonflies and other useful insects?
First off, dragonflies are not pollinators, meaning they don’t need flowers for food. The few plants that benefit them do it indirectly by attracting insects that the dragonflies feed on or providing shelter or a place to perch.
As for lavender attracting dragonflies, it is noteworthy that the plant’s potent scent repels bugs like mosquitoes, which happen to be dragonflies’ favorite.
However, this doesn’t mean that lavenders have no way to attract these beautiful winged carnivorous insects. Lavender flowers attract plenty of butterflies, honey bees, and other insects that dragonflies feed on.
As such, it is safe to say that dragonflies are as attracted to lavender as they are to other sweet-smelling flowering plants.
All in all, if you have a lot of lavender flowers in your garden, you may not see as many dragonflies around. This is because dragonflies’ major diet consists of mosquitoes and lavender flowers keep them at bay.
Do dragonflies like lavender: Final thoughts
If you want to attract dragonflies to your garden, you need to make it more hospitable to the way these creatures breed.
Setting up a pond and growing aquatic plants as well as flowering plants that dragonflies are attracted to are brilliant ways of welcoming them to your garden.
Related Article: Why Are There so Many Dragonflies in My Yard?