Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, Revised and Updated Second Edition

A Natural Approach to Pest Control

Jessica Walliser

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780760371725
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

This revised and updated edition of Jessica Walliser's award-winning Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden offers a valuable and science-backed plan for bringing balance back to the garden.

With this indispensable gardening reference—now updated with new research, insights, and voices—learn how to create a healthy, balanced, and diverse garden capable of supporting a hard-working crew of beneficial pest-eating insects and eliminate the need for synthetic chemical pesticides.

After a fascinating introduction to the predator and prey cycle and its importance to both wild ecosystems and home gardens, you'll meet dozens of pest-munching beneficial insects (the predators) that feast on garden pests (their prey). From ladybugs and lacewings to parasitic wasps and syrphid flies, these good guys of the bug world keep the natural system of checks and balances in prime working order. They help limit pest damage and also serve a valuable role in the garden's food web. But, they won't call your garden home if you don't have the resources they need to survive.

With a hearty population of beneficial insects present in your garden, you'll say goodbye to common garden pests like aphids, cabbage worms, bean beetles, leafhoppers, and hornworms, without reaching for a spray can. To encourage these good guys to stick around and do their important work, you'll learn how to create a welcoming habitat and fill your garden with the best plants to support them.

Inside you'll find:

• Bug profiles introducing dozens of beneficial insects and the down-and-dirty details on howthey catch and eat their prey
• Plant profiles featuring the best plants for supporting beneficials
• Interviews with entomologists who focus their life's work on understanding the value of insects, including Doug Tallamy, Paula Shrewsbury, Leslie Allee, Dan Herms, and others
• An inspiring look at how plants and insects intersect in the most incredible ways
• Why gardening for bugs is just as important to the greater world as it is to your garden
• Tips for creating insectary plantings and borders to support a broad range of beneficials

The acclaimed first edition of Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden ushered in a new way to garden; one that appreciates and understands of the power of returning a natural balance to the garden. This revised and updated edition continues to herald and expands on that same important message.

plant profiles

the best plants for beneficials

When I was co-host of a radio program called The Organic Gardeners, part of my job was to answer questions from callers about how to get rid of bugs. This never used to be a problem for me; I would tell the caller what organic product to spray to get rid of the perceived pest, and that would be that. But now that I am a confessed bug lover it’s a different story, and I struggle to find a balance. I used to want to go into a long, involved elucidation of how callers are gardening wrong and how they need to appreciate their bugs and how everything is connected, but if I did they would probably hang up on me. I heard the “just tell me what to spray” tone in their voice. So instead of giving a lecture, I told them not to panic. Seldom does an insect actually kill a plant in a garden setting. Yes, the plant might not look so good for a while, but the chances of its survival are excellent. I would then suggest a preventive measure they could employ for the following season and sometimes would offer them an organic product solution.

There are many beautiful and diverse plants that support insect life, and they are integral to the health and balance of the entire landscape. You could cover your entire front yard with these plants if you wanted to.

My favorite times were when I got the opportunity to tell the caller that I haven’t sprayed a single plant in my own garden with any insecticides (organic or otherwise) in about ten years. My radio co-host could claim that he had not sprayed for nearly twenty years. Over the years I have come to know my bugs, and I know how tolerant my plants are of them. That being said, it is also very seldom that I actually have a major pest outbreak in my landscape anymore. My garden is very stable. And it’s so stable because it is so diverse.

This chapter will help you get started on building your insect-friendly landscape by describing some of the best plants for natural enemies. These plants are top-notch providers of the accessible food and habitat beneficial insects need to feel welcome and content. Many of these plants produce flowers with small, accessible nectaries, which as you may recall from the previous chapter are the most user friendly to the widest assortment of beneficials. Choose a diverse mixture of plants with differing floral architectures, bloom times, and growth habits, and watch a place of beauty become a garden teeming with insect life.

the importance of landscape diversity and complexity for good bugs

Based on an interview with Paula Shrewsbury, PhD, professor of entomology and extension specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland

BOTH LANDSCAPE DIVERSITY and complexity are important for good bugs. Diversity refers to the number of different plant species present, while complexity refers to the assortment of growth habits and structures of those plants. According to research conducted by Paula Shrewsbury and her colleagues at the University of Maryland, vegetative diversity and structural complexity in a landscape create a more favorable environment for natural enemies so that they are then better able to control potential pests.

In her PhD r...