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While some insects such as aphids and grasshoppers can wreak havoc on your garden, others can help your garden. Many insects help get rid of dangerous garden bugs by eating them in abundance. For example, a hoverfly can eat dozens of aphids per day. That means if you invite the right insects into your garden, you can reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides altogether.
Pollinators like bees, butterflies and aphids can help your garden and surrounding ecosystem grow by pollinating flowers. In addition, many insects break down organic matter, such as leaf litter and animal carcasses, which can add nutrients to the soil and promote plant growth.
There are several ways to attract beneficial insects to your garden, depending on the pest you are trying to attract. For example, creating a pond can help attract insects like dragonflies and dragonflies, and planting lots of flowers will attract pollinators like bees to your garden. This list includes 17 tips for attracting beneficial insects to your garden.
1. Grasshopper
Locusts eat dozens of complex herbivorous insects. Pickers are the most common because they have a special affinity for the smell of dill. So plant dill to make your garden a lovely haven for prayer.
2. Ladybug
Ladybugs (or ladybugs) love to eat aphids, as do many other insects that can harm your plants. Help ladybugs by adding cilantro, dill or dill to your garden mix.
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3. Butterfly
The mere presence of butterflies adds a touch of paradise to any garden, but these beautiful insects also help plants thrive by pollinating them. One of the best ways to attract some of these magnificent creatures is to plant lumpuris, a spiky flower that some butterflies find particularly attractive.
4. Eyelashes are green
Greenworms are also known as "flaming lions" because of their voracious appetite for aphids. They can lure their larvae with the adults' green-tipped wings and eventually the marigolds, which contain a nectar they say is delicious.
Related: How to Get Rid of Aphids
5th minute Pirate Beetle
Some assassin bugs only kill bad bugs when they're full, but little pirate bugs keep killing even when they're full. Growing alfalfa is a great way to recruit little pirate bugs to tend to your plants.
RELATED: 8 Ways to Control Garden Pests
6. Dragonfly
No insect that damages your garden is immune to the mighty dragonfly, which has a voracious appetite for insects. Creating a planting pond in your yard is a great way to keep them jumping. Don't worry about mosquito nests. They also eat dragonflies.
Related: How to Make Your Own Mosquito Repellent
7. Moth
Moths are winged creatures that play an important role in plant pollination. They also serve as food for other beneficial insects. Plant some nettles to attract them and they'll soon join your garden with a legion of butterflies, hoverflies and dragonflies.
8. Bees
Bees are not only good for the garden, but also important for the environment. Although they get a bad rap from people who fear stings, the truth is they are too busy pollinating flowers to fear the sting. Lavender, chives, and echinacea plants attract the attention of criminals.
RELATED: 20 Flowers That Will Attract Bees to Your Garden
9. Little boy
Alpha female larvae poison the aphid and feed during the day. If you don't see bugs in your aphid infestation, you can buy them to get rid of the pests.
10. Ground beetle
Seeing bugs in the garden - a pleasant find! Nocturnal animals feed on ants, aphids, caterpillars, nudibranchs and nudibranchs, some species also eat seeds of invasive weeds. Next time you see a bug, let it go.
RELATED: 8 Reasons Not to Use Pesticides in Your Garden
11. Hunter wasp
You may not want to deal with bamboos and their stings, but having bamboo eaters in the garden is a good thing. These nasty spikes not only pollinate flowers but also attack the crawling insects that live in your garden. Braconids and paper wasps are useful for caterpillar and fly control, and typhoid and scaled wasps prey on Japanese beetles and June beetles.
Related: 9 Ways Japanese Beetles Clean Up Your Garden
12 killer bugs
The family Reduviidae contains about 160 species of killer bugs in North America and more than 7,000 species worldwide. These beetles use a curved pulpit (stinging mouthpart) to inject venom into their prey, including destructive insects such as aphids, leafhoppers, leafhoppers and tomato caterpillars. These bugs love flowers like daisies and marigolds, so a garden full of beautiful flowers can encourage them to stay.
13. Spider
Spiders feed on common garden pests, including beetles, flies, wasps, and spider mites. They also love mosquitoes and cockroaches. So if you see them taking over your garden, thank them for keeping many pesky insects at bay. Adding mulch around plants can attract more spiders to your garden and gives them a cool, dark place to hide their prey.
Related: What attracts spiders? Here's how to invite them into your home
14. Cunning flies
Robber flies of the Asilidae family are mostly gray or black, with a hairy body and a long, tapering abdomen. Some robber flies look like wasps or bees, but their appearance can vary greatly depending on the species. These insects eat bugs, flies, grasshoppers, wasps and many other arthropods that you don't want in your yard. Because beetles prey on a wide variety of insects, growing plants that attract large numbers of arthropods will attract more attention to your garden.
15. Syrphids
Syrphids, also known as flower flies or hoverflies, belong to the family Syrphididae and are similar to robber flies, wasps and bees and provide protection from predators. If you're worried about aphids damaging your plants, be happy if you see hoverflies in your garden—they can eat dozens of aphids a day. They are also very important pollinators and make important contributions to ecosystems. Attract hoverflies to your area by planting shallow flowers such as daisies, zinnias and cosmos that allow easy access to nectar.
RELATED: 12 Plants That Are Attractive to Pollinators Year-Round
16. Dragonfly
Dragonflies eat species of insects that most of us don't need (mosquitoes and flies, we mean you). These helpful garden critters resemble dragonflies with long, slender bodies and basket-like legs, but are slightly smaller, usually about 1.5 to 2 inches, and dragonflies are usually more than 2 inches long. Dragonflies are usually found near freshwater where they mainly prey on flying insects. Creating a small pond with plants can help attract these beneficial insects to your yard.
17. Centop
Depending on the species, centipedes have 15 to 177 pairs of legs, totaling about 8,000. Centipedes eat all kinds of nasty insects like mosquitoes, cockroaches, grasshoppers and beetles. Since centipedes like to hang out in damp, dark places, adding mulch to your yard can encourage them to exercise.
