Scott's Beneficial Insect Page - Plants to Attract Beneficial Insects

Scott’s Beneficial Insect Page

Insects for Sale Useful Books from Amazon.com Beneficial Insect Information

Free Butterfly house plans, butterfly house designs, beneficial insects, plants to attract beneficial insects, lady bugs, lady beetles, lacewings, solitary wasps, butterfly information, Oregon butterflies, Dill, alyssum, sunflowers, butterfly weed, good insects, helpful insects, predatory insects, aphids, nectar, Apiaceae, buckwheat

Beneficial Insect Books:

Good Bugs for Your Garden – This is a very non-techincal look at beneficial insects in the garden and landscape. Includes illustrations and some detailed information on many beneficial insects, including specific plants to attract specific organisms.

Natural Enemies Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Biological Pest Control

Pests of the Garden and Small Farm: A Grower's Guide to Using Less Pesticide

The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving...Without Chemicals

Other stuff you might be interested in:

Paper Towels - 100% post-consumer recycled paper - Seventh Generation Brand

Toilet Paper - Made from 100% recycled paper - Seventh Generation Brand

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide

Beneficial Biota Information

Ladybug Many Insects and organisms are helpful around the garden and in agricultural fields. Perhaps the most obvious beneficial insects are the pollinators, like bees (see my bee info), but other insects like Ladybugs (aka Ladybird Beetles (left)), Lacewings, hoverflies, parasitic and predatory solitary wasps (see my wasp info), and many others are important predators of crop damaging pests. One of the most important things you can do to help these insects is simply AVOID USING INSECTICIDES. There are also beneficial organisms that aren’t insects:

Mycorrhizal fungi are perhaps the most important beneficial organisms in the garden, but are also perhaps the most under-recognized. About 90% of all plants form a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with these underground fungi. Mycorrhizal fungi can benefit plant growth and vigor by increasing nutrient uptake, increasing drought tolerance, increasing tolerance to salinity, and increasing resistance to some plant diseases; yet most people have never even heard of mycorrhizal fungi. Most soils have some mycorrhizal fungi, but newly established beds could probably use some species enhancement. You can buy mycorrhizal fungi under the name BIOVAM here.

Beneficial Nematodes (aka predatory nematodes) attack lawn grubs, fleas, and many other pests that live in the soil. I’m not sure that you can attract them to your yard, but they are apparently very effective. By far the least expensive source I’ve found is Integrated BioControl Systems. They are producers of the nematodes.

Birds and Bats can be very helpful at reducing insect populations in yards and gardens. I have a resident Phoebe that has a nest very near my garden and roosts on my tomato cages; she can be seen picking insects off of my plants. Bats are known to eat a large number of crop damaging insects. See my birdhouse plan page or bat house page for more info and house plans.

Alyssum Many of these insects and organisms can be bought online, but by planting the proper plants and avoiding the use of insecticides you can attract many of them yourself. The lists of beneficial insect attracting plants you can find in the links section below can be overwhelming, so I’ve made a short list of the plants that attract many types of beneficial insects. The following are the plants I plan to grow in my garden to attract beneficial insects:

Plants That Attract Beneficial Insects (Short List):

Dill (Anethum graveolens) – Dill and other members of the Umbel (Apiaceae) family (e.g. Fennel, Coriander/Cilantro, Caraway, Anise, and others) are renowned for their ability to attract beneficial insects, because of their abundant nectar-producing flowers. Almost every kind of beneficial insect I looked up was attracted to dill. Some butterflies like dill too (see Butterfly Page). Dill and Fennel are by far my highest priority beneficial insect plants. (picture of dill). (Note: If you plan to collect seed for next year don’t plant dill and fennel too close to each other because they will cross pollinate)

Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) – Alyssum has been shown in scientific studies to attract beneficial hoverflies (picture of alyssum and hover fly, picture of alyssum)

Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) – Buckwheat attracts a wide variety of beneficial insects with its nectar producing flowers. Buckwheat is also a good spring and early fall cover crop in the garden. (pictures of Buckwheat)

Sunflower Family (Asteraceae) – Many members of the Sunflower family (e.g. Asters, Cosmos, sunflowers, daisies, purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), Zinnias and many others) are attractive to a wide variety of beneficial insects, bees, and butterflies. See my Butterfly Page for more info.

Yarrow (Fern-leaf) (Achillea filipendulina) – Yarrow is attractive to beneficial insects because of its nectar (picture of yarrow)

Others – Some other plants I’m considering are Bee Balm (aka Bergamot or Monarda), Lavender, and Russian Sage.

I’m always looking for suggestions of good beneficial insect plants.

What worked for you

E-mail me: bathabitat@gmail.com

Buy Garden Beneficials Online:

Click here to Buy BIOVAM Mycorrhizal Fungi

Click here to buy Beneficial Nematodes from Integrated BioControl Systems

Beneficial Insect Links and Bug House Plans:

Plants That Attract Beneficial Insects: A great detailed web page of beneficial plants listed by insect species

Beneficial Insects Database: A web page with database type information that you can import into excel

Beneficial insect pictures and info: Great pictures and descriptions

Beneficial insect OSU: Nice pictures and descriptions

Other Beneficial insect links: Lots of good links

Ladybug house plans: Looks good; See next link too.

Ladybug house pictures: Good pictures that give you an idea of the variety of lady bug houses you could build using the same basic plan as the first link. The ‘expert’ at this site (John) told me that many slats on the front make the houses more attractive to bugs. He also said that the back wall should be grooved to give insects places to hide their heads. This is a commercial site and I do not endorse it one way or the other.

Lacewing house plans: Pretty simple; Does it work? I don’t know. Try it and find out!

Any Questions?: bathabitat@gmail.com

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Last Update 1/12/2007 SMH