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NATURAL PEST CONTROL
By Attracting Beneficial Insects to Your Garden

 

 

Pest is always the problem for every gardener and the solution is always chemical pesticides. But you will have to watch and keep your kid & pets from the toxic substances. So controling natural pest by using beneficial insects will be the good choice.

A garden insectary is a small garden plot of flowering plants designed to attract and harbor beneficial insects. These "good insects" prey on many common garden insect pests and offer the gardener a safer, natural alternative to pesticides.

The garden insectary is a form of "companion planting," based on the positive attributes plants can share in deterring pests, acquiring nutrients, or attracting natural predators. By becoming more diverse with your plantings, you're providing habitat, shelter, and alternative food sources (such as pollen and nectar), something many predators need as part of their diet.

Here's an example. You can control aphids with an aphid predator like aphidius, and you can encourage aphidius to set up shop by planting sunflowers or lupin. Of course, the aphid predators need the pests to be present in order to eat, thrive, and reproduce—that is, they need aphids to be found in and around the general area you're trying to protect from the aphids.

Natural Pest Control by Species

Use Table A to figure out which beneficial insects you want to attract, based on your particular pest problems. Then use Table B to see what you should plant to attract the beneficial insects (predator insects)

Table A

Natural Pest Control by Insect Species

Pest Insect

Predator Insect
Aphids Aphidius
Aphids Aphidoletes
Thrips, spidermites, fungus gnats Beneficial mites
Eggs of many pest insects Damsel bugs (Nabidae)
Whiteflies, aphids, thrip, spider mites Dicyphus
Slugs, small caterpillars and grubs Ground beetles
Grubs Spring Tiphia wasp
Aphids, mealybugs and others Hoverflies
Scale, aphids, mites, soft-bodied insects Lacewings
Aphids, mites Ladybugs
Thrips, aphids, mites, scales, whiteflies Pirate bugs
Caterpillars; beetle and fly larvae Tachinid flies
Whiteflies; moth, beetle and fly larvae Parasitic wasps

Table B.

What to Plant to Attract Beneficial Insects (Predator Insects)

Predator Insect

What to Plant (Insectary Plant)

Lacewings, aphidius, ladybugs Achillea filipendulina
Hoverflies Alyssum
Ground beetles Amaranthus
Spring Tiphia wasp Peonies, firethorn, forsythia
Ichneumon wasp, ladybugs, lacewings Anethum graveolens (dill)
Lacewings Angelica gigas
Ladybugs, hoverflies Convolvulus minor
Hoverflies, parasitic wasps, lacewings Cosmos bipinnatus
Dicyphus Digitalis
Lacewings, ladybugs, hoverflies Daucus carota (Queen Anne's lace)
Damsel bugs, ladybugs, lacewings Foeniculum vulgare (fennel)
Pirate bugs, beneficial mites Helianthus annulus
Hoverflies Iberis umbellata
Hoverflies, parasitic wasps Limonium latifolium (Statice)
Aphidius, aphidoletes, hoverflies Lupin
Parasitic wasps, tachinid flies Melissa officinalis (lemon balm)
Parasitic wasps, hoverflies, tachinid flies Petroselinum crispum (parsley)
Pirate bugs, beneficial mites Shasta daisy
Pirate bugs, aphidius Sunflowers
Ladybugs, lacewings Tanacetum vulgare (tansy)
Dicyphus Verbascum thaspus

Tips and Suggestions

1. Include plants of different heights in your insectary.   Ground beetles require the cover provided by low-growing plants such as thyme, rosemary, or mint. Lacewings lay their eggs in shady, protected areas, so providing such places near crop plants is a good idea.

2. Tiny flowers produced in large quantity are much more valuable than a single, large bloom.   Large, nectar-filled blooms actually can drown tiny parasitoid wasps.

3. Members of the Umbelliferae family are excellent insectary plants.   Fennel, angelica, coriander, dill, and wild carrot all produce the tiny flowers required by parasitoid wasps.

4. Composite flowers (daisy and chamomile) and mints (spearmint, peppermint, or catnip) will attract predatory wasps, hover flies, and robber flies.

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