Saturday, March 19, 2011

Attracting Beneficial Insects to your Garden

Beneficial Insects are an important part of organic gardening. It is very easy to have them without purchasing some. Just plant the flowers they need to survive.  The adults often eat only pollen. It's the juveniles the do the clean up work.  So you are planting flowers that produce pollen for the adults. If you keep the adults well fed with flowers they will stick around and lay their eggs for future generations of pest eating larvae.

To sustain adult beneficial insects, plant early, mid-season and late blooming flowers.
Here's a starter list of flowers to plant for beneficial insects.
Herbs:

  • Mint
  • Oregano
  • Comos
  • Lavender
  • Basil
  • Marigold
  • Yarrow - early bloom
  • Nasturtium
  • Lovage
  • Golden Marguerite - early bloom
Mountain Mint

Nasturtium 

Penstemon

Monarda

Echinacea, Shasta Daisy, Spirea

Agastache
Perennials:
  • Salvia
  • Coreopsis
  • Monarda - Bee Balm
  • Agastache
  • Ajuga
  • Rudbeckia
  • Echinacea
  • Leucanthemum - 'May Queen' is an early bloomer =Shasta Daisy
  • Pycnanthemum - Mountain Mint
  • Penstemon