Insects that are harmful to your garden can be extremely difficult to eliminate or even control. But the good news is that every harmful insect has a predator or parasite that attacks and feeds on it, known as a beneficial insect and there are many steps you can take to encourage their presence in your garden.
If you learn to work with these natural little pest control machines, you will make the job of keeping your garden healthy and prosperous much easier and more enjoyable. So take note of the following tips and remember that just because an insect looks nasty it still might be your best friend when it comes to your garden's health.
1. Soldier beetles: Aphids, caterpillars, corn rootworms, cucumber beetles and grasshopper eggs are the preferred diet of both the adults and larvae of these common beetles. Adults are slender, flattened and 1/3 to 1/2-inch long. The larvae have the same shape but are covered with hairs.
2. Spiders: These are one of the most easily identifiable insect predators around. Most people kill spiders on sight, but this is really not necessary. Spiders rarely bite humans, but they are tireless hunters of all kinds of harmful insects inside the house as well as in the garden.
3. Tachinid flies: These housefly sized flies have a very bright orange abdomen, black head and thorax, along with a fringe of short black hairs around the hind legs. They feed on tent caterpillars, armyworms, corn borers, cutworms, stinkbugs, as well as other pests.
4. Lacewings: These 1/2 to 3/4 inch insects have delicate green or brown bodies and transparent wings. The spindle-shaped, alligator-like, yellowish or brownish larvae feed on a broad selection of soft-bodied pests, such as aphids, scale, thrips, caterpillars, and spider mites. The distinctive, pale green oval eggs each sit at the end of its own extended, thin stalk on the undersides of leaves.
5. Lady beetles / Lady bugs: Both adults and larvae prey on soft-bodied pests which include mealybugs and spider mites.
6. Tiger beetles: A variety of brightly colored and patterned 1/2 to 3/4 inch beetles feed on a broad variety of soil- dwelling larvae.
7. Trichogramma wasps: Small as a pencil point, these parasitic wasps inject their eggs inside the eggs of more than 200 species of moths. Their developing larvae consume the host.
8. Yellow jackets: These insects take house flies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and many larvae from your garden to their young.
9. Hover flies: Adults resemble yellow jackets and are crucial pollinators. The real bug consumers of the family are the brownish or greenish caterpillar-like larvae have an appetite for aphids, beetles, caterpillars, sawflies, and thrips.
10. Ichneumonid wasps: A valuable ally in controlling several caterpillars as well as other destructive larvae, the dark-colored adult wasps differ in size from less than 1 inch to 1/2 inches. They have lengthy antennae and long egg-laying appendages referred to as ovipositors which are easy to mistake for stingers. The adults require a steady source of nectar-bearing flowers to survive.
11. Minute pirate bug: These bugs have a voracious appetite for soft-bodied pests, such as thrips, corn earworms, aphids and spider mites. The adults are 1/4 inch long, somewhat oval-shaped and black with white wing patches. The fast-moving, immature nymphs are yellow-orange to brown in color and teardrop-shaped.
12. Rove beetles: These beetles, which resemble earwigs without pincers, feed on soil-dwelling pests such as root maggot eggs, larvae and pupae. In mild, wet climates, they also eat slug and snail eggs.
Attracting Beneficial Insects
Welcome beneficial insects to your garden and encourage those you buy to stick around by taking a few simple but important steps.
1. Purchase beneficial insects that aren't already in your garden through mail-order garden suppliers.
2. Stay clear of using of broad- spectrum insecticides. Simply put, a broad spectrum insecticide by definition targets ALL insects, good ones as well as bad. Even some organic insecticides such as pyrethrin and rotenone, are toxic to beneficials. In addition, beneficials are even more susceptible to the insecticide than pests simply because as predators and parasites, they move over leaf surfaces much more frequently and thus they come into contact with insecticides much more often.
3. In order to attract a diversity of insects plant many diverse types of plants throughout your yard. Plant diverse species, such as evergreens and plants of various sizes and shapes. A mixture of trees, shrubs, perennial and annuals in the yard offer lots of choices for food and hiding places.
4. It is important to provide a water source for your beneficials. A shallow birdbath or bowl with stones and water next to the garden should work just fine. But remember to change the water regularly to discourage breeding mosquitoes.
