Garden Pests & Bugs - Good Bugs
There are over one million types of insect, making them the most common creatures on Earth, but don’t despair. Many are beneficial and will protect your garden plants.
Ants
So why would you want ants in your garden? They come up in droves from the cracks in the patio, some types also bite, and worst of all, they encourage aphids. But many ants are predatory and make short work of other insect pests. They are also active foragers, recycling dead plant material. Eats small insects, spiders and dead plant material.
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Bees
Unlike their close relations (wasps), bees are much more popular garden visitors. Gardeners appreciate the role they play in pollination, and if you decide to keep a hive, you can harvest honey and beeswax. Bees are essential for pollination. Without them, there would be no apples, runner beans, tomatoes, or many other crops. Eats nectar and pollen. Leaf cutter bees collect leaves to line their nests.
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Butterfly
Not only are they a delightful addition to the garden, but they pollinate several garden plants and wild flowers, and attract insect-eating birds. Several UK species are threatened, so encourage them with nectar-rich plants. Butterflies eat nectar and pollen. Their caterpillars eat a range of plants.
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Centipede
The inability to distinguish friend from foe, combined with the common human fear of 'creepy crawlies', means that some beneficial bugs get squashed, while pests go free. Take centipedes, for example. These long, multi-footed creatures are carnivorous and eat an array of insects, as well as small slugs, which means they have to be quick in order to catch prey. But their active nature quickly brings them to our attention. Despite being the gardener's friend, they're often mistaken for closely related millipedes, which do damage plants and seedlings, but are slow-moving, so less likely to get noticed.
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Devils Coach-Horse BeetleThis distinctive beetle may look a bit alarming, but it's a useful predator of insect larvae, woodlice and slugs, often tackling prey much larger than itself. Though harmless to people, it can release a foul smell when disturbed, so leave it alone and it will ravage pest populations.
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Ground Beetle
These quick-moving, violet hued predators are also partial to aphids but, with a wide-ranging menu, they'll help to control many other familiar garden pests, such as caterpillars, leatherjackets and wire worms, as well as the increasingly troublesome vine weevil and every gardener's nemesis, slugs. Though big enough to take on adult pests, ground beetles will also hunt through the soil, looking for vulnerable eggs and larvae. You'll often see them scurry away when you lift up large pots and planters.
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Hover Fly
These small flies are well named. You’ll see them hovering seemingly motionless near flowers. Their bold colours are designed to deceive predators into thinking that they are wasps, but unlike wasps they have no sting. The hungry larvae of hoverflies make a beeline for aphids, as well as polishing off thrips and a host of other sap-sucking insects. The adult hoverflies often get mistaken for bees and wasps but, as the name implies, they are a type of fly with a highly distinctive flying pattern, including long periods of hovering. The adults feed on nectar and pollen, so they also do their bit, improving pollination.
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Lacewing
These ethereal insects can be seen throughout the summer, but are most noticeable in autumn, when the adults flutter around in search of a place to over winter, often coming indoors. With transparent wings, long feelers and erratic flight, they’re often feared, but should be welcomed with open arms. As with ladybirds, lacewing adults and larvae are both carnivorous. They can eat 100-200 aphids a day and are most active in summer, when temperatures are 15’C and above. Lacewing larvae don’t just feed on aphids; they will also scoff mites and flies, before transforming into adults.
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Ladybird
The ladybird must be one of our favourite insects. Yet how many of us have spent time studying what they're capable of when confronted by an army of aphids? On a warm day, one adult can eat up to 100 aphids. And when you think that each young greenfly can reproduce after a week and produce five new aphids every day for a month, it's a good job that they're top of the ladybird's menu. It's not just the adults. Ladybird larvae are equally partial to aphids, eating up to 150 per day. Both ladybirds and their larvae are at their most active when temperatures are 10'C or more.
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Moth
Easily confused with butterflies, moths are typically night-flying insects, and so tend to be less colourful than their day flying relations. Exceptions include the colourful daytime burnet moths, the showy night-time hawk moths and the acrobatic hummingbird hawk moth which hovers like its namesake. Moths pollinate flowers, while their caterpillars feed on plant leaves, so they can be serious pests. But if you can tolerate a few holes in your plants, then one evening, you might be rewarded with a sight of a hawk moth. Eats nectar and pollen. Their caterpillars eat a range of plants.
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Spider
Nothing is more likely to send the gardener scurrying for cover, than happening upon a spider. These eight legged creatures are not insects, but arachnids, a group that also includes scorpions, mites and ticks. Of course, as insect predators, they are unparalleled. These are some of the most effective fly and insect trapping animals around, but they get the worst reaction of all beneficial creatures. With 30 per cent of women, and 20 per cent of men, afraid of spiders, according to a recent study, it’s often overlooked that these web-making creatures eat masses of flying pests.
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Wasps
Most wasps are small, inconspicuous insects that live by parasitising other insects. But it’s the social wasps, those black and yellow terrors that we are most familiar with. Like ants, wasps are usually thought of as a pest rather than a beneficial bug, but they are efficient insect predators. To keep their colonies going, they need large quantities of insect prey, so imagine how many bugs you would have in your garden if there were no wasps. Eats a range of bugs, including caterpillars and spiders. They also like sugary nectar and anything sweet.
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Given shelter from the worst cold, some ladybirds and lacewings are able to survive winter in their adult form. This is a great benefit to the gardener as they are able to emerge as soon as it is warm (10’C for ladybirds, 15’C for lacewings) and start to feed on early aphid populations.
Insect boxes, habitat stacks and log piles will provide the perfect places for the adults to over winter, or they’ll find their own shelter in the cracks in old walls and fences, or in dry leaf piles under ledges and trees. Next summer you’ll notice increased numbers of these beneficial insects, which will control aphids while they are still in small numbers.
If the aphid population is large or you want to ensure a healthy number of predators at the start of the season, then ladybird and lacewing larvae are available to buy mail order. Simply release them into your garden near the infected area.
Insect boxes, habitat stacks and log piles will provide the perfect places for the adults to over winter, or they’ll find their own shelter in the cracks in old walls and fences, or in dry leaf piles under ledges and trees. Next summer you’ll notice increased numbers of these beneficial insects, which will control aphids while they are still in small numbers.
If the aphid population is large or you want to ensure a healthy number of predators at the start of the season, then ladybird and lacewing larvae are available to buy mail order. Simply release them into your garden near the infected area.