imafan26
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Attracting beneficial insects

The best way to protect the garden is to enlist an army of beneficial insects and other animals to come live in your garden.

We often only concentrate only on the plants of interest to us whether they be plants in the vegetable garden or ornamental plants and trees. We should treat our whole garden space and its surroundings as a micro ecosystem. Plants will thrive if the right plant is in the right place and there is a balance between predator and prey.

Attracting beneficial insects and other animals depends on just doing some planning to include shrubs, trees, some bare ground, piles of rocks or hollow tubes (logs or pvc pipe), and a source of clean water especially during the dry months to provide habitat. Some birds are welcome because they do eat insects, and other things like reptiles and mice, others not so welcome because they feed mostly on seed and fruit. A chicken does eat insects and slugs, but they will also eat your lettuce and seedlings so you do need to strike a balance somehow. Frogs and toads do eat ants, and small flying insects like mosquitoes and flies. Toads will also eat slugs and snails.

Beneficial insects need to have a reliable food source. The larvae do more than the adults in controlling pests like aphids, caterpillars, whitefly, and other pests. However, the adults usually feed on nectar and pollen as well. Certain plant families will help keep them around longer.

Carrot family (apiaceae)
Members of this family attract parasitic wasps and flies and provide nectar and pollen to other beneficial insects like lady bugs and bees. Fennel, dill, carrots, Queen Anne's lace, parsley, coriander, caraway, and cumin. Most of these plants have culinary uses but if they are allowed to bloom, they will also provide pollen and nectar for beneficial insects.

Aster family (asteraceae)
The development of genome mapping has changed the names of many plant families and shifted plants from one family to another. The asteraceae now contain many common flowering plants in the garden. Asters, daisies, blanket flower, sunflower, cosmos, marigolds, coreopsis, echinacea, golden marguerite, and yarrow. These flowers attract bees, butterflies, soldier beetles and ladybugs. You will need to deadhead many of these plants unless you have a meadow and don't mind them reseeding.

Legumes like peas, hairy vetch, cowpea, sun hemp, alfalfa, fava bean, clover are grown as cover crops but also attract many beneficial insects when they are in bloom. Cowpeas can be a trap crop for black aphids as well.

Mustard family (brassicaceae)
Ever wonder why your cabbage crops are such magnets for pests. Well, it is because they are! They also attract many different predator species as well. However it is best to keep the cabbage family separated from other plants that the pests also like. Pests attracted will be the cabbage worm, cabbage looper, aphids, white flies, cut worms, and diamond back moth. These crops may need some extra attention and protection (like growing in hoop houses or under row covers or insect netting.) Sweet alyssum, rocket, and wild mustard can be grown as trap crops far from the garden to lure pests away and attract predators. Alyssum will be visited by bees that will collect pollen, but honey bees' tongues are too short to reach the nectar. Longer tongued bees and butterflies will benefit.

Verbena family
Verbena, vervain, and lantana are attractive to a number of beneficial insects. However, this family can be invasive unless they flowers are cut off before they can produce seeds. There are some newer lantana that are seedless, so they don't provide pollen for beneficial insects.

Some plants like nasturtiums and marigolds will serve as trap crops to lure pests away from other crops. While attracting beneficial predators that will feed on the pests. Specific trap crops can be planted around fields so they can attract pests and be selectively treated. Sun Hemp and some varieties of marigolds can help reduce nematode populations if planted as a cover crop. Fennel attracts aphids as well as provides food for ladybug larvae and flowers produce nectar and pollen for many beneficial insects. Trap crops should be planted away from the plants you want to protect.

Timing is everything. There should be a variety of flowering plants throughout the growing season to provide food for beneficial insects and predators. Early, middle and late bloomers wanted.

Attracting beneficial insects will improve crop pollination (yields) and lesson the need and impact of dependence on chemicals to control pests. This helps everyone in the environment, including us. Biological controls will never get 100% of all the pests or stop all the damage. If all the pests disappeared so would the predators. You need to strike a balance and decide the threshold level for damage that can be tolerated. You can use other methods like physical barriers, hand picking, trap cropping, and choosing what and where to plant to minimize damage.

https://www.farmerfred.com/plants_that_attract_benefi.html
https://www.pollinator.org/7things
https://ipm.missouri.edu/MEG/2017/3/Trap_cropping/

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TomatoNut95
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Location: Texas Zone 8

I have no trouble attracting frogs and toads. I'll find the silly boogers in strange places here in there around the yard. Yesterday I uncovered an angry little toad, and also came across one of those itty bitty frogs that make that creaking, clicking noise. Not sure if they're spring peepers or what?

What I would like to attract are honey bees. This year I'm trying to plant some nice flowers: marigolds, snapdragons and I'll let some basil bloom again this year.

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The trick to attracting honey bees is massing the plantings in groups, rather than scatttered around. Bees cannot see red, so concentrate on blue, orange, yellows and purples. Bees have a hard time seeing white flowers unless they are massed (Queen Anne' lace, or let some carrots flower). Most night blooming flowers are white and are pollinated by night pollinators like moths, ants, beetles, flies, and midges. Tubular flowers usually have landing pads for bees like bee balm. Red flowers usually will attract butterflies. Flowers should be the single type not doubles. Instead of snapdragons grow more lemon queen sunflowers (5-8 ft tall), asters, cosmos, daisies, and single zinia (cactus flowered) and single marigolds. They love the flowers of citrus trees and honeysuckle.


Bees have short tongues so they can only reach the nectar of relatively small flat flowers. Composites like sunflowers and zinnias are made up of multiple small flowers. they also like some tubular flowers but have to work harder to get to the nectar. I have holy basil and Jamaican oregano that flowers all year. Bees will usually work a source until it is exhausted. These plants along with the alyssum and false heather are never out of bloom. Lavender and verbena are more attractive to carpenter bees which are important pollinators of cucurbit crops here. We don' have squash bees or bumble bees. Alyssum will attract butterflies (it is in the cabbage family), but the bees in my yard will still collect pollen from it. Buckwheat is a cover crop that attracts many beneficial insects including bees.

The pollinator partnership has a tool for selecting plants native to your area to attract bees. It is in the link below.
https://www.pollinator.org/guides
https://www.gardendesign.com/flowers/bees.html

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TomatoNut95
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Location: Texas Zone 8

I did plant some yellow, orange and white marigolds but they're the pom-pom looking blooms. I don't know if bees will like those? I hope they will.

That's fascinating, I didn't know bees couldn't see red! No wonder they ignored my red dianthus. 😆

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

The single flowers are better. It is harder for the bees to get to the nectar if the flowers are double or pom pom type. Composite flowers that are flat are the best.
They also like tubular flowers with wide throats and shallow nectar pockets.
Bees can see light in the UV spectrum we cannot see. They see nectar guides which tell them which flowers have nectar and how to get to them. It looks like dark purple streaks under UV light.

https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postde ... tnum=15101



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