9 Garden Bugs You Never Want To Kill
It's easy to view every crawling creature in your garden as a threat to your tomatoes or roses, but most insects are actually your hardest working employees. They provide free pest control and pollination services that keep your garden thriving. Here are nine of the bugs you actually want to see around your garden and what they do for your plants.
Praying Mantis
The praying mantis is a master of camouflage that waits for a meal to wander by. While they're indiscriminate eaters, they're excellent at capturing larger pests like grasshoppers or beetles that other bugs won't touch. They're harmless to humans and fascinating to observe. Having a few mantises in your yard is like having a security guard on duty. They keep the population of leaf-munching insects under control while blending right in.
Green Lacewing
Green lacewings are delicate insects with transparent wings, but their young are nicknamed aphid lions for a reason. These larvae are voracious predators of mites, mealybugs, and whiteflies, so you'll often find them on the undersides of leaves where pests hide. If you kill the adults, you lose the next generation of protectors. They're an essential part of an organic garden's defense system and work throughout the entire growing season.
Hover Fly
You might mistake a hover fly for a small bee because of its yellow stripes. Unlike bees, they don't sting and they're capable of hovering in place. The adults are fantastic pollinators, while their larvae feed on aphids, so they provide a double benefit to your yard. By protecting them, you're helping your flowers get pollinated and your pest levels stay low. They're one of the most efficient multi-taskers in nature.
Ladybug
Most gardeners recognize ladybugs, but they don't always realize how much these beetles eat. A single ladybug can consume thousands of aphids during its lifetime. If you see their larvae, which look like tiny black and orange alligators, leave them alone. They're even hungrier than the adults, and they'll keep your soft-stemmed plants safe from juice-sucking pests.
Ground Beetle
Ground beetles aren't the prettiest bugs, but they're incredibly useful. They stay low to the dirt and hunt for slugs, snails, and cutworms during the night. Since many of the most destructive garden pests are active after dark, these beetles act as the night watch. If you find a dark, shiny beetle scurrying under a rock or mulch, let it go. It's likely saving your seedlings from being eaten at the roots.
Braconid Wasp
Don't let the word wasp scare you, as these tiny insects don't sting humans. Instead, they lay their eggs inside caterpillars like the dreaded tomato hornworm. If you see a caterpillar covered in what looks like white grains of rice, don't kill it. Those are wasp cocoons. Once they hatch, the new wasps will find more pests to target. It's a gruesome but effective way to manage your garden's caterpillar population naturally.
Mason Bee
While honeybees get all the credit, mason bees are actually more efficient pollinators. They don't live in hives or have a queen to protect, so they're very unlikely to sting. They spend their days visiting thousands of flowers to collect pollen for their nests. Without these productive flyers, your fruit trees and berry bushes wouldn't produce much of a harvest. They're easygoing neighbors that deserve a safe place to live and work.
Spiders
Spiders aren't technically insects, but they're vital to your garden. A spider web is a highly effective trap for flying pests like gnats, mosquitoes, and flies. Jumping spiders and wolf spiders hunt on foot, catching bugs that crawl across your mulch. They don't want to bother you, prefer to stay out of your way, and bring no harm to your plants. They're the ultimate generalist predators, ensuring that no single pest species takes over your outdoor space.
Earthworm
Most gardeners know not to kill earthworms, but it's worth knowing how they're the engineers of your soil. While they aren't hunting pests, they're breaking down organic matter and turning it into nutrient-rich castings. Their tunneling creates paths for air and water to reach plant roots, which prevents soil compaction. A garden with plenty of worms is a sign of healthy, fertile land!
Learning to coexist with these creatures will transform the way you garden. Instead of fighting against nature, you'll be working with a team of specialists that handle the dirty work for you. A diverse garden is a resilient garden, and these bugs are the foundation of that strength.