Attracting Beneficial Insects to Your Garden
Join forces with nature and increase garden productivity while keeping garden pests under control.
Honeybees pollinate our flowers, are essential for much of our food production and plant reproduction. But other insects like the hummingbird moth do the same. Many garden flowers like bee balm and phlox help bring them to your garden.
Grow a few plants to attract predatory insects to your landscape. Dill and its relatives attract parasitic wasps, coreopsis brings in the aphid-eating lacewings, and milkweed attracts lady beetles as well as monarch butterflies. Add some hyssop to attract the pirate bugs that eat thrips, spider mites and leafhoppers and members of the aster family to attract spiders that eat a variety of insects.
And avoid pesticides that kill both the good and bad insects in the garden.
A bit more information: The small Trichogramma wasp helps keep harmful caterpillars like cabbage worms under control. The adult lays its eggs in the caterpillar eggs preventing the caterpillar eggs from hatching and feeding on the plants. These wasps also attack gypsy moths, tomato hornworm, cutworms, codling moths, armyworms, corn borers, fruitworms, and cane borers.
Related
Categories
Upcoming Live Events
& Webinars
March 27, 2024
FREE WEBINAR
How to Start a Garden for Beginners
Register now
April 3, 2024
Garden Trends
Franklin Public Library, Franklin, WI
April 10, 2024
FREE WEBINAR
Container Gardening Throughout the Year
Register now
April 11, 2024
FREE WEBINAR
7 Steps to Managing Water Where it Falls in Your Yard
Register now
April 17, 2024
Landscaping for Birds:
A Gardener’s Perspective
Glendale, WI
April 18, 2024
Be a Waterwise Gardener
Golden Rondelle Theater, Racine, WI
Register now
April 20, 2024
Pruning Hydrangeas and Other Shrubs
Pasquesi Home & Gardens, Lake Bluff, IL
April 27, 2024
Ridges & Rivers Book Festival
Viroqua, WI
April 28, 2024
Flowering Trees and Shrubs
Ebert's Greenhouse Village, Ixonia, WI
May 1, 2024
FREE WEBINAR
Ornamental Fruits and Vegetables
Register now
May 9, 2024
FREE WEBINAR
How to Plant Your Rain Garden
Register now
WATCH ON-DEMAND WEBINARS
Learn More