Not all bugs are bad! In fact, whether you do anything to encourage them or not, there are quite a few beneficial insects already living in your garden and working for you. They are the good guys that help keep the bad guys in line. Hundreds of insects inhabit our yards and less than 10% of them actually cause any problems. The rest are either harmless or actually do some good. When we drag out the sprayer and the insecticides to deal with an isolated problem, we often do much more harm than good. The more we learn about how interconnected everything is in nature, the more we look for natural ways to deal with gardening problems.
How do you know which insects are beneficial? They are the ones that target other pests and don't hurt your plants. Almost everyone can already identify a few common beneficial insects such as ladybugs and praying mantids; you just may not realize they are beneficial. Learning which ones are the good guys can be a challenge, especially for those of us who immediately think any insect on our plants is doing harm. If you have an aversion to looking closely enough to identify the bugs, it might be even harder. But learning which are the beneficials isn't really all that hard, especially if you just take on a few at a time. Some of the more common beneficial insects are ladybugs, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ground beetles, dragonflies, praying mantids and lightning bugs.
What problems will they solve? Beneficial insects can help you control a wide variety of common insect pests, especially aphids, scale, whitefly and chewing larvae such as caterpillars. But it is important also to know what they cannot do. Where beneficial insects alone are not the answer, they should be used in conjunction with other environmentally sound techniques. This approach is called IPM (integrated pest management). IPM encourages looking critically at a garden problem and what effects it may have on the plants before selecting a plan of action.
How do beneficial insects actually control other insects? Beneficial insects work in your garden either as predators or as parasites. Most are predators that eat the pest insects. Some are parasites of the pest insects. One of the most common parasitic beneficial insects is a tiny wasp that lays its eggs on young pest insects such as caterpillars.
Where do I start? There are probably quite a few beneficial insects already in your garden or in the neighborhood and many beneficial insects are also available to purchase. Whether you are going to rely on the natural population or bring in more, you should provide for their basic needs of food, water and shelter.
How can I attract beneficials to my yard? Several steps are needed to attract and keep the beneficials. First, keep close track of what is going on with your plants so you notice any problems early. When you do use pesticides, use those that are the least toxic to beneficial insects (such as soaps and oils). If you spray with an insecticide, be sure to use the best type of sprayer for the job and only spray affected plants. It will also help to plant a wide variety of plants and create a variety of micro-environments (areas protected from wind, sun, etc.).
What types of plants will attract more beneficial insects? Generally, they are attracted to plants that have small flowers such as golden marguerite, cosmos (especially the tall white variety), lemon gem marigold, zinnia, tansy, dill, fennel, Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota), spearmint, buckwheat, caraway, basket of gold alyssum, sedums, yarrow and coriander. If you want to attract a specific beneficial insect, a little research may help you learn what that insect prefers. For example, ladybugs are especially drawn to yarrows, golden marguerite, dill and fennel. Of course, you'll want to select plants that will look good in your garden too.
Is there anything else I can do to keep the beneficial insects around once I have them in the yard? Be sure there is a source of water, such as a birdbath or shallow saucer with pebbles in the water to provide a place for the insects to perch while they drink. Leave some of your herbaceous plants standing (especially ornamental grasses) at the end of the season to provide a place to overwinter. Mulches provide beneficial insects with a place to breed, hide and winter.
I've seen ladybugs and such for sale. Is that a good way to start? Unfortunately, we have used so many pesticides in the past that the population of beneficial insects in your area may not be as high as you'd like. If you have taken steps to make your yard attractive to beneficial insects, this is a good way to increase the population.
Why don't the ladybugs just fly off when you let them go? Lots of interesting research has been done on ways to attract ladybugs and induce them to stay in your yard. Studies show it is important to spray the garden with water just before you release the ladybugs. It will also help to loose them in the evening instead of early in the day. Another interesting study indicates that spraying plants occasionally with sugar water (5 oz. sugar /qt. water) can attract lots more ladybugs.
Where do the beneficial insects that I buy come from? Some are collected from the wild, but most are bred in commercial insectories and shipped all over the country.
Can I buy them locally? A few types of beneficial insects are available locally, and it is important to buy them from a reliable source that knows how to care for them before they are sold to you. Those often available locally include ladybugs, lacewings, praying mantids and beneficial nematodes. There are several mail order sources for beneficials too, but again it is important to deal with reliable sources to insure these living creatures get to you in good condition.
Are spiders beneficial insects? While spiders aren't technically insects (they are arachnids), they are beneficial creatures in the garden and should be encouraged. Don't be discouraged if they eat a few of your other beneficial insects. They will more than make up for it by eating lots of pests. Spiders also scare away other insect pests.
If I have tried using beneficial insects and it doesn't seem to have worked, what might be the problem? If the area has been sprayed with insecticides many times in the past, it may take a while to build up the population of beneficials. When working with beneficial insects or any other natural method of gardening, we sometimes have to accept a different level of perfection in return for less hassle and fewer chemicals.
Do the beneficial insects control insect problems in nature? Natural plantings do occasionally have problems, some of them severe. We tend to have more problems than would naturally occur because we put plants together that wouldn't naturally grow near each other, we plant much closer than nature would and we plant nonnative varieties and non-adapted plants that could not survive on their own.
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