Beneficial Insects Tn The Landscape

When you learn a little bit about how insects and their kin live (and die!), it’s enough to horrify the most jaded scary movie fans. How about something that lays its egg inside you, and you are eaten alive from the inside? Or a marauding monster bigger and faster than you plows through your peaceful community, devouring friends and family as it rampages? It’s all that, and more!

Tiny parasitic wasps lay their eggs inside aphids, and the developing wasp larva happily munches away on its not-initially dead host, eventually turning that aphid into a fat golden mummy from which an adult emerges. Some wasps do that to spiders, stinging them into paralysis, then laying eggs inside to dine on the alive but helpless spider. Ladybird beetle larvae chomp their way through a cluster of scale insect larvae, which can’t move fast enough to escape.

We can foster the community of beneficial insects in our landscapes by providing them with habitat. First, limit the use of insecticides and herbicides in the landscape. Then, plant perennial flowering plants that feed the vegetarian adults of the beneficials; it’s the kids that are the carnivores! As a bonus, many of the best plants are great additions to our landscapes.

A short list of great plants for attracting beneficial insects includes yarrow, echinacea, fennel, lavender, mints, elderberry, clover…and many more. Plant them near your trees and shrubs, and make sure they get irrigation along with those trees and shrubs.

Contact us to find out more about our Albuquerque tree removal services.