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Flower gardening is a wonderful way to express yourself creatively. A gardener who experiments with colors, textures and shapes is a happy gardener. That is, until those "textures" change shape and colors from gorging insects.
Luscious green leaves and stems become a food source for hungry caterpillars, cutworms and aphids. Flower petals either drop prematurely, get eaten or never develop. Some gardeners battle the pesky plant-eaters with chemicals. This method can and does work. Unfortunately, it "works" on all bugs. Even the good ones.
What, you ask? Good bugs? Is there such a thing?
There are lots of good bugs that live in and near your flower gardens. They're called beneficial insects. These insects include praying mantises, ladybugs, ladybird beetles, green lacewings, predatory and parasitic wasps, and more. Each has it's own way of killing off the bad insects. They eat them, poison them, and some even make them hosts for their eggs, which also kills off the bad insect. Below is a list of some beneficial insects and how they deal with the bad ones:
Dragon flies eat huge numbers of mosquitoes, midges and gnats.
Assasin and ambush bugs lurk in leaves to capture their prey (aphids, beetle larvae, caterpillars, thrips, moth eggs, spider mites and leafhoppers).
Lacewings eat aphids, spider mites, small caterpillars and insect eggs.
Wasps can feed up to 225 flies to their young in a single nest.
Spiders catch their unsuspecting prey with their sticky webs.
Other beneficial insects include nematodes and trichogramna. Nematodes are tiny worm-like creatures that live in the soil. They are parasites to soil-born insects' larvae, but do not harm earthworms or plants. Trichogramna are very small insects that belong to the wasp family. They feed on caterpillar eggs.
You can wait for these beneficial bugs to head for your gardens naturally, or you can purchase them in large quantities. Inquire at your local nursery, look for them in your favorite garden supply catalog, or get on the web and surf for "beneficial insects." There are several on-line stores that sell insect larvae, eggs and live insects.
Plant pollen and nectar-rich plants such as daisies, coneflowers, sedum, yarrow and other annuals to attract beneficial insects to your garden. Even weeds such as goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace attract these bugs. Also, provide a source of water that won't drown the bugs.
Remember that good bugs live to battle the bad ones. Chemicals are a gardener's choice -- but remember you're killing off and poisoning the good, the bad and the ugly all in one fell swoop. The "bad" and the "ugly" are indeed the plant-eating insects, but the "good" are the beneficial insects, pets, and wildlife that are adversely affected by the chemicals.
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