Good Garden Bugs: The 10 Most Wanted

Earthworms in soil.Earthworms are good garden bugs to encourage in your backyard.

These good garden bugs really are wanted! These bugs are good bugs; they're bugs you want to have in your garden. 

What's that you say? No such thing as a good bug? The only good bug is a dead bug? Shame on you! Good bugs eat bad bugs. So if you kill off the good bugs, you're going to have twice as many bad bugs on your hands (and your plants).

Here are 10 good garden bugs you'll want to make feel at home in your backyard.

10 Good Garden Bugs

1.  Earthworms

Earthworms aerate the soil by tunneling through tunneling, and their excrement fertilizes it. Call them "poopers."

2.  Pillbugs

Poopers.

3.  Dung Beetles

Poopers. The name says it all!

4.  Bumble Bees

Pollinate plants.

5.  Praying Mantises

Eat bad bugs.

6.  Lacewings

Eat aphids.

7.  Ladybugs

East aphids and other pests.

8.  Braconid Wasps

Eat hornworms.

9.  Butterflies

Butterflies are pretty to look at. But they are much more than a pretty face to your plants.

When an adult butterfly lands on a flower to suck some delicious nectar through its proboscis, it accidentally gathers pollen on its body. The butterfly rubs some of the pollen on the next flower it moves to and collects some more. Pollination allows plants to reproduce by producing seeds.

10.  Wasps

Wasps are beneficial predators. They hunt insects such as whiteflies and aphids. They kill caterpillars. For many, wasps are seen as a threat and even a nuisance, but they perform vital roles in the garden ecosystem.

As a natural form of pest control, they are a gardener's friend, taking crop-eating insects to feed to their young. They also pollinate flowers and other plants. So do what you can to welcome them into your garden, and you're sure to enjoy the blossoming results!


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