Beneficial Insects
Most insects in a garden are neutral or actively helpful, and the ones doing pest control for free are easy to kill by mistake. A single ladybird larva — the odd, alligator-shaped grey creature people often squash — eats hundreds of aphids before it pupates. Hoverfly larvae do the same job unseen. Parasitic wasps lay eggs inside caterpillars and whitefly. Broad-spectrum sprays remove all of them along with the target, which is why pest outbreaks often get worse after spraying.The guides here help identify the useful insects at each life stage, since the larvae rarely look like the adults, and cover how to bring them in and keep them: flat open flowers such as umbellifers and daisies for nectar, a long flowering season, undisturbed leaf litter and hollow stems for overwintering, water, and restraint with pesticides. There is also guidance on tolerating a low level of pests deliberately, because predators need prey to stay around.
