Insectary Plants and Beneficial Insects

Pest insects can often be a nuisance or even a serious problem on landscape plants.  While our modern instinct is to reach for a chemical solution, that may not be the most effective choice.  It also may be the most expensive and the most ecologically harmful.  So, what do we do instead?

A diversely planted landscape that includes many small-flowered perennial plants can help a lot.  This is because there are a lot of beneficial insects that can help with pest control, that are attracted to these kinds of plants.  Many of these garden allies are vegetarians as adults, feeding mainly on pollen and nectar.  It is their children that are the ruthless predatory carnivores. 

The list of beneficial insects is long and includes ladybugs, parasitic wasps, syrphid flies, tachinid flies, big-eyed bugs, assassin bugs, green lacewings and many wasps like the Tachytes pictured below.  

The plants that feed these friends include things in the mint family, such as mint (in all its varieties), lavender, rosemary, catmint and various salvias; plants in the sunflower family (including yarrow, echinacea, and tansy), plants in the carrot family (such as fennel, cilantro, dill and carrot), and many such as clover, vetch and sweet alyssum.

New Mexico State University has a publication titled “Using Insectary Plants to Attract and Sustain Beneficial Insects for Biological Pest Control” that has lots of good information.  The great thing is that all these plants can add a lot of visual appeal to a landscape, in addition to their pest-control assistance.

Click here to find out more about our Albuquerque tree removal services.