There are countless pesticides available on the market. But you can also save this. Better use beneficial insects against pests.
If you are aiming for gentle pest control in your ornamental or kitchen garden, then you should give priority to biological plant protection. There are numerous sprays available on the market that are made from certain plant extracts. These are extremely reliable when used against pest larvae and their adult insects.
You can also save yourself expensive pesticides if the pest infestation is low to moderate. After all, there are enough insects that you can use against pests. However, in order for the so-called beneficial insects to settle in the garden, you must also offer them optimal conditions in your garden. In the following, we will introduce you to a few buzzing pest controllers and familiarize you with their conditions for the best possible settlement.
One tip in advance:
Create your ornamental garden close to nature and you will have the least aphid infestation. Just as pests settle between your trees and shrubs, beneficial insects will also become at home in your garden with proper care and keep the leaf suckers in check.
How to attract beneficial insects to the garden
❍ Lacewing (Chrysopidae)
The lacewing is a welcome beneficial insect. Their larvae eat several hundred aphids before they pupate. Lacewings mate in spring. So that the future generation has good conditions, the delicate insects lay their eggs on shoots and leaves in the immediate vicinity of an aphid colony. The newly hatched larvae immediately set about containing the plant pests. They don't eat the aphids, they suck them out. The empty shells are then left on the plant.
➞ Attract lacewings:
Plant some perennial catnip in your ornamental garden. The beneficial insect literally flies onto this plant. Because the blossoms of real catnip contain the fragrance nepetalactone.It is similar to the sex attractant of insects and thus attracts the adult flies as pollinators. Aphids also produce the attractant nepetalactone. This also attracts the lacewings.
➞ Overwintering lacewings in the garden:
Surely you want to have something of the beneficial insect for a longer period of time. Therefore offer your lacewings a hostel as a place to spend the winter. A special lacewing box or a roost in the insect hotel, where the adult animals survive the winter, are suitable for this. You can of course build such an insect hotel yourself. Then fill the box with wheat straw and hang it in a tree with the louvered front facing away from the wind. If the garden is larger, then hang several of these boxes.
❍ Ladybird (Coccinellidae)
Ladybugs are widely popular. The red and black Krappler not only look pretty, they are also considered lucky charms. They are therefore also called lucky beetles. There are about 70 native species, which differ in colour, size and the number of spots on their elytra. The most common species in our region is the seven-spot ladybird. It develops two generations per year. An adult specimen of this ladybird eats 40 to 150 aphids as a daily ration.
The beneficial insect overwinters and lays its eggs in spring. After about a week, blue-grey larvae hatch from the yellow eggs. They are very mobile and will consume up to 600 aphids in the three weeks before they pupate.
➞ Attract Ladybugs:
If you want to lure ladybugs into your garden, the best way to do this is with their favorite food, i.e. aphids. Leave areas of your garden in a natural state where aphids are also allowed to live. You can also create a natural meadow where dill, yarrow, poppies, buckwheat and chamomile will grow. Ladybugs appreciate these plants and like to be seduced by them.
➞ Overwintering ladybugs in the garden:
It is certainly in your interest if the ladybugs stay and hibernate in the garden after the work is done. So the colorful beetles will be there next spring when the aphids get going. That means the insects need a place to hibernate. Ladybugs, for example, like to settle in loose bark on trees, in tall tufts of grass or piles of stones. The hedge clippings mixed with leaves should also provide a place in a corner of the garden for the ladybirds to overwinter.
❍ Hoverfly (Syrphidae)
Seems menacingto be the hoverfly at first sight. But it is completely harmless to humans, even if it is sometimes mistaken for a wasp. This may be due to their black and yellow abdomen. The fly got its name from its hovering in the air. The insect stands in the air like a helicopter, then darts one meter further at lightning speed and seems to be observing its surroundings.
There are now around 450 species in Central Europe. The most common species is the Hain hoverfly. You usually find them on flat umbellifers, buttercups and rose plants, but also on lilies. While the adult hoverfly feeds on nectar and pollen, the larvae eat about 600 aphids, scale insects, blood lice, spider mites and small beetle larvae in their two-week lifespan.
➞ Attract Hoverflies:
Apart from bees, hoverflies are the most important group of pollinators. They orient themselves visually when searching for food. Various tests have shown that this buzzing insect has a preference for yellow flowers. From this it can be easily deduced that they are attracted by the yellow color of the flowers. For example, daffodils, forsythia, witch hazel and winter jasmine flower yellow.
➞ Hibernating hoverflies in the garden:
When the year slowly comes to an end, a hard time begins for many insects. The hoverflies can overwinter as adult insects as well as larvae or pupae. They mainly use shrubs and hedges. On the one hand, these trees serve as winter quarters for the animals and on the other hand as a reserve when food is scarce.
❍ Assassin Bugs (Reduviidae)
Assassin bugs are beneficial in every garden. They actively hunt for their prey or lurk on flowers and leaves until a harmful insect settles. Then they penetrate the body of their prey with their powerful proboscis and secrete a salivary secretion. This secretion paralyzes or kills the victim. It is then sucked out by the assassin bug.
One of the best-known assassin bugs in the garden is the flower bug. With its long snout it is able to suck out up to 100 spider mites per day. Already in the first warm days of spring, it targets numerous spider mites or aphids. Depending on the species of assassin bugs, 1 to 3 generations occur each year.
➞ Attract bugs:
The main food source for many bugs is pollen and the sap of some plants. So you successfully attract the assassin bugs by using flowering hedges, dry stone walls andintegrate unfilled flowering plants in your garden. It can also be worth leaving the foliage in the fall. Just sweep it up in a pile, because assassin bugs feel very comfortable in piles of brushwood and stones.
➞ Overwintering assassin bugs in the garden:
Don't keep your ornamental garden too sterile. A garden corner with a small pile of old tree trunks and loose bark or a pile of leaves at the edge of the garden offers the assassin bugs an optimal place to overwinter. Then, early in the year, you can spot the predator sucking on pussy willow along with other flower bug species.
Here is another interesting video on the subject:
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