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Don't Bug Me - Telling The Difference Between Harmful and Helpful Insects
By Steve C Boulden

There is a certain order in nature that should be maintained to make the lifecycle in the ecosystem continuous. This sense of order also applies in your garden, and the crucial factors would be your plants and insects surrounding them. That’s why telling the difference between harmful and helpful insects is important.

Garden Wars: Knowing Your Allies And Enemies

A lot of people think that having insects in their garden is a bad thing. This is true because some insects, like aphids, can be annoying and harmful. But not all of them should be considered pests. Other insects, like ladybugs, are very helpful. The trick here is to get a balance between the helpful insects and the harmful ones.

A Fine Lady Garden Helper

As said, ladybugs are very helpful insects, especially in your garden. This is because they feed on small caterpillars and Aphids mites, which are damaging to your garden. Both the larvae and adult ladybugs eat the pests in your garden.

Ladybug larvae are mainly active between the months of May and July, while the adults come after. You can even buy Ladybugs at many nurseries and greenhouses, or order them through mail.

Delicate Laces For Predating

One of the most excellent insect predators that you would want to have in your garden are Green Lacewings. Its larvae eat Mealybugs, Aphids, Spider mites, white flies, Thripes, and scales, just to name a few.

Hover Helpers

Another good insect for your garden are Hover Flies. They are very helpful insects and look like wasps or dark bees. Hover flies eat caterpillars, green flies, and fruit tree Spider Mites. Hover Flies are easily attracted to plants like phacelia plants and marigolds. Putting plants like these throughout your garden will encourage Hover Flies to thrive.

Dragon Friends

Dragonflies are also one of the best benificial insects. They eat mosquitoes, which are not only harmful for your plants, but for humans as well. You should plant reedy plants to encourage dragonflies to thrive in your garden.

Busy Bees

Although bees may seem dangerous to some people, they are actually quite helpful to gardens and harmless to other insects. They do not eat or predate upon other insects. They help out in your garden by pollinating flowers and trees. A lot of vegetables need flower pollination too. Having bees close by will aid this process. You should plant flowers throughout your garden to encourage busy bee workers to visit.

Know Your Foes

Insects that you should watch out for are Scales, Leaf Miners, Japanese beetle and Spittlebugs. All of these are very harmful insects for your plants. So if you spot them thriving around your garden, appropriate action must be done.

Most people choose to use insecticides or pesticides. Yes, this may be the easiest way to kill insects, but too much of this can also be harmful, especially to your plants. That’s why making use of good insects is, generally, a much better way to deal with pests than the use of pesticides.

When you use good insects, the method is natural and you don’t contribute to polluting nature. With just a little effort in learning which bugs are good and bad, you can improve the way you and your garden handles insect problems. So the next time you see an insect thriving in your garden, always think twice before you even try to squish or shoo them away. They may just be the friends you need.

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Trackerway

Very interesting article. Sometimes I get into the mentality of "All bugs are bad, kill kill kill!" but I see how that's not a good attitude to have. I appreciate reading about the beneficial bugs. Thanks!

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