Attracting Beneficial Insects

The month of May brings many beautiful flowers and other delights in the garden. However, it also brings potential insect pests. Many gardeners are becoming more and more aware of the potential dangers of the misuse or overuse of pesticides. The best way to keep insect pests in check is to practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which is a comprehensive effort of multiple control strategies to manage pest levels.

The main control measures are physical controls, cultural controls, biological controls, and chemical controls. Physical controls work by doing something to physically stop or kill the pest like fencing or netting. Cultural controls involve maintaining proper plant spacing, fertility, irrigation, and sanitation to ensure optimum plant health, so they can resist pest pressure. Biological controls use the pest’s natural enemies, such as predators or parasites, to help manage pest populations. When all other control measures have failed to keep pest levels at an acceptable level, chemical controls (pesticides) can be used to reduce pest populations rapidly to bring them back to an acceptable level. The proper choice of the pesticide active ingredient and its formulation are crucial to provide the most effective control of the pest, but to have the least impact on natural enemies, pollinators, and the environment.

One form of biological control is to attract and encourage beneficial insects. Beneficial insects help control pest insects by feeding on them or laying eggs within them. These natural enemies can be described as predatory, feeding on many different insects. Beneficial insects can be purchased from online sources; however, many of the native perennials and annuals provide excellent habitats to attract and increase the numbers of many beneficial insects and natural enemies. Using native plants combined with reduced use of broad-spectrum insecticides, can significantly build populations of natural enemies for many insect pests.

Lady Beetle Larvae feeding on green peach aphids (Myzus persicae).
Photo courtesy David Riley, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org.

Green lacewing larvae (Chrysoperia rufilabris) feeding on aphids.
Photo courtesy of Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org

A lacewing egg at the end of its hair-like stalk.
Justin Ballew, ©HGIC 2019, Clemson Extension

For more information on beneficial insects, see HGIC 2820, Natural Enemies: Predators and Parasitoids; HGIC 1721, Incorporating Beneficials Into the Gardener’s Toolkit; and HGIC 1727, Pollinator Gardening.

Table 1: Annuals That Attract Beneficial Insects And The Insects They Control.

Table 2: Perennials That Attract Beneficial Insects And The Insects They Control.