8 Bugs Worth Keeping Around: A List Of Beneficial Insects
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Gardeners are always talking about beneficial insects. However, they don’t always tell what these insects are.
Here is a list of the insects you want hanging around your garden because they eat the bad insects and help provide the valuable nutrients your garden needs to thrive:
- Bees – We all know how important they are for pollination. Here’s more info on what happens when we kill all our bees.
- Wasps - They eat aphids, mites, whiteflies, caterpillar eggs, moth larvae, beetles and corn earwigs.
- Praying Mantis – these unusual looking bugs are great for controlling aphids.
- Ladybugs – These “ladies” of the garden control aphids, mealy bugs and mites.
- Beetles – particularly ground beetles, are fantastic for eating caterpillars, cut worms and even slugs.
- Spiders – They are extremely beneficial for eating a wide variety of pests.
- Green Lacewings – Consume aphids, mites and a variety of pest eggs.
- Earthworms – While they are not insects, I am still going to put them on the list. These guys do more for the garden then you may think. Providing nutrients, aerating the soil and controlling PH are just the beginning of their contribution.
By encouraging a few of natures most helpful insects you can not only control harmful pests but you can also grow your veggies organically.
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Love the photo of the praying mantis! Very good article too on beneficial insects — my favorite are the bees and ladybugs. Thanks for stopping by my blog. Cheers. — Good Acres
Bugs are good food for birds too, which is another significant reason to have them around, preferably in large numbers.
I was always fascinated with the praying mantis… I’ve never actually seen one, but there are supposed to be some in my area. They have almost an alien look to them.
Yup, I love bugs!!!!
Most people would rather kill them and never see them again. Excellent article to clarify the benefits of bugs!!!
Great post. Who are the authors on here, it never says who is writing. It would be nice to know.
Hi Paul -
This website is a joint effort between myself and my brother, Mason, all of the articles are written by us.
Thanks for stopping by! Don’t be a stranger.
Thanks,
Mandy
see! I knew insects weren’t all bad
Where would I go about getting such bugs?
We’ve had aphid issues in the roses, and a few other pests on the fruit trees; if I can encourage certain bugs to help maintain order that would be great!
Hi Jim,
You can purchase ladybugs and worms at your local nursery or you can order them online. I think there is an ad for arbico organics here that is a fantastic organic nursery and they carry all sorts of good insects.
Good luck with your roses!
Great article, thank you for writing it. I just can’t help but feel as though we should try to view all insects as good even if they are a nuisance to us.This may not be easy to do when we are being feasted on by mosquitos but insects we consider pests do have a purpose regardless of whether or not we find value in them–don’t we need aphids to feed those hungry ladybugs and mosquitos to feed bats and birds?
I like 99% of bugs especially cicadas, crickets, grasshoppers, and ladybugs. But centipedes terrify me, and that’s the only bug I would kill.
My garden doesnt have enough beetles: hats off to beetles – anything that goes for slugs gets my vote!
Lady bugs and green lacewings are much better than praying mantids…because when they get bigger they love to eat bees and don’t really prefer aphids anyway. They eat good and bad insects non discriminately. But the others are always a plus in our gardens.
Great list! Love the mantis, I actually keep a ghost mantis and a lotus mantis when I can find them for an affordable price (as pets…yeah I’m weird, ill say it!)
You can actually get all kinds of beneficial bugs from some of the more organic, progressive garden shops.