Garden Allies
Most pest problems have a natural predator that would handle the job free of charge, if the garden gave it a reason to stay. These are the hunters worth keeping around.
Garden Allies at a glance
Every insect here, rated on the same three scalesI score each one 0 to 10 for what it does for your garden, how much trouble it causes, and whether its sting or bite is worth worrying about. Same scales on every page, so the numbers are comparable.
Commercial growers buy ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitic wasps by the billion every year. Your garden recruits them for free.
The Aphid Problem, Solved
Ladybugs
A single ladybug larva eats several hundred aphids before it pupates, and the larvae are the ones doing the real work. They look like tiny black alligators, which is why half the people who find them squash them.
Learn the larva and you'll never spray an aphid colony that was already being handled. The adults get the photos; the young earn them.
My ladybug guides cover the species and the lookalikes worth knowing.
Ladybugs
The Ambush Specialist
Praying Mantises
A mantis will hold one position on a stem longer than I can hold a camera on it, then strike faster than the shutter. I have a lot of failed photos proving both halves of that.
They're generalists, so they take pollinators along with the pests. Whether that trade favors your garden depends on what else lives there.
Mantis species guides and egg case ID are all in here.
Praying Mantises
Mosquito Control, Airborne
Dragonflies & Damselflies
Dragonflies catch prey mid-air at a rate north of ninety percent, and a good share of that prey is mosquitoes. I'll take that over a bug zapper any summer.
They need water to breed, so regular sightings mean a healthy pond or stream nearby. That makes them one of the easiest water-quality readings you can take.
Here's how I tell dragonflies from damselflies at a glance.
Dragonflies & Damselflies
The Quiet Workhorse
Lacewings
Nobody plants a garden hoping for lacewings, yet commercial growers buy their eggs by the thousand. The larvae are called aphid lions, and having watched one work a rose stem, I think the name undersells them.
The adults are those pale green insects drifting toward your window light in summer. Most people never connect the two.
My lacewing notes cover both halves of that double life.
Lacewings
In Defense of Wasps
Wasps & Hornets
I keep a running defense of wasps and I'm sticking to it: a paper wasp colony clears thousands of caterpillars in a season, and most species have no interest in your picnic. Yellowjackets in October are the exception that ruins the family reputation.
Hornets are just large wasps, and the ID matters more than the fear. Knowing which one you're looking at decides whether the nest is a problem at all.
Nest ID, sting facts, and when removal is actually warranted: it's all in here.
Wasps & Hornets
The Night Patrol
Ground Beetles
Ground beetles run the night shift at soil level, taking slugs, cutworms, and root maggots while everything else sleeps. I find them by lifting the same plank I leave in the bed for exactly that purpose.
They want nothing from you except somewhere undisturbed to hide by day. Cheapest pest control I've ever installed.
Meet the species patrolling your beds after dark.
Ground Beetles
Tiny, Precise, Effective
Parasitic Wasps
Most parasitic wasps are smaller than a rice grain and can't sting you at all. What they do instead is find one specific pest and end its whole line from the inside.
A hornworm carrying white cocoons looks grim, but it's the best news a tomato grower can get. I leave those in place every time.
My guides match each wasp to the pest it hunts.
Parasitic Wasps
Handle With Respect
Assassin Bugs
Assassin bugs stalk slowly, strike with a folding beak, and take prey twice their size. I photograph them often and handle them never, because the bite is memorable in the wrong way.
They're genuine allies all the same. Admire from a lens-length away.
Species profiles and the lookalikes to rule out are in here.
Assassin Bugs