The Different Types and Roles Beneficial Garden Insects Play in Your Yard
People spend a lot of time and energy trying to keep certain harmful insects out of their gardens. It's important to remember that there are also genuinely beneficial garden insects.
In fact, many of these beneficial garden insects can help people control the populations of the truly harmful garden insects that might threaten their plants.
Other beneficial garden bugs are useful when it comes to pollination. One way or another, people should not be trying to eliminate insects from their gardens. They should just focus on cultivating populations of the beneficial garden insects.
The Best Little Pollinators
The bumblebee is one of the most famous of all of the beneficial garden insects. Bumblebees are some of the best pollinators that people will find anywhere. Crop production rates are much higher in areas that have high bumblebee populations.
While it's important not to bother them, they still generally don't sting humans. These are some of the most beneficial garden insects in the world, and they can thrive in many climates.
However, honeybees are still useful when it comes to pollination, making them beneficial insects as well.
Butterflies are also among the top pollinators that you will want to attract.
Pollinators are especially important if you have a vegetable garden of which many vegetable plants require insects for cross-pollination and thus to produce fruit.
Pest Control With Beneficial Garden Bugs
It sometimes seems counter-intuitive, but there are instances where the best pest control involves using other insects that some people might regard as pests. Controlling pest populations using beneficial bugs is better than doing the same thing by using pesticides.
Insects are not necessarily pests under all circumstances. People might not want lots of ladybugs in their houses. They will still want lots of ladybugs in their gardens.
Ladybugs are tremendously beneficial garden bugs because they're so great at reducing the populations of harmful insects.
Many people know that ladybugs will eat aphids. However, they also eat mites and nearly all other insects that have sufficiently soft bodies. Since they eat insect eggs in general, ladybugs are great at attacking insect populations right at their source such as Cabbage Moth eggs.
Ladybug larvae are incredibly voracious predators, and so are adult ladybugs. It's possible for ladybugs to consume hundreds of aphids while they're still in the larval stage. They will go on to eat thousands of other bugs before they die. Unlike some beneficial garden insects, ladybugs are also completely harmless. They won't sting anyone.
People who are specifically having a lot of trouble with aphids might consider getting aphid parasites as well. These are beneficial garden insects that are more specialized when it comes to their prey than ladybugs are, and they're very efficient at killing aphids.
There are some beneficial garden insects that are not as well-known as ladybugs and aphid parasites, and the green lacewing falls into that category. These beneficial insects are as photogenic as ladybugs, and they're just as hungry. They'll eat any insect with a soft body, and they'll certainly eat insect eggs. Beneficial garden insects like these will help a garden tremendously with few negative side effects.
