Skip the pesticides by incorporating these beneficial bug predators into your garden

Listen 17:04

Gardening 101: Unsure if a garden predator is friend or foe? Here’s what to know!

Do you ever struggle to identify whether an insect or animal is beneficial to your garden? You aren’t the only one! Very often, local gardeners might have a defensive approach to their garden, so that any critters hanging around their plants. So often, people will use pesticides to battle unwanted guests, but that can, of course, have drawbacks for any food you’re growing and any pets you have around your home. So what ways can you better leverage nature to help your plants? Beneficial predators can be one avenue, allowing them to patrol your crops, to stop most of the pests that’ll cause real damage to your garden. Helping us to identify these birds and insects is Karey Windbiel-Rojas, associate director for Urban and Community IPM with the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. We also want to hear from you: Do you volunteer at a community garden, or have your own at-home? Do you have trouble identifying pests, or are you seeking ways to invite garden predators? Send us your questions by calling us at 866-893-5722 or emailing atcomments@laist.com.

The ideal number of pests in your garden is zero, but actually getting to that point is virtually impossible. Broad spectrum pesticides offer a seemingly quick way to get bugs out of your yard, but come with drawbacks, like reducing the number of pollinators in your garden and potential health repercussions.

Enter: different bugs, but not just any bugs — predators. By using certain insects to your advantage, you can reduce the number of bad bugs in your garden.

LAist's Jacob Margolis (a gardening expert in his own right) turned to Karey Windbiel-Rojas with the University of California's Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program for tips. Here's what she had to say on a recent episode of AirTalk, LAist daily news program which airs at 89.3 FM from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on weekdays.

Hear us out: wasps

Yes, those wasps. While they get a bad rap, they help keep local insect populations in control through their predation. Margolis keeps a hive of wasps in his garden. He’s observed the omnivorous winged bugs eat a variety of pests off his tomato plants in real time.

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He hasn’t been attacked by the hive yet, but has received a few stings from ground-based wasps around his yard. For him, so far, the pest reduction is worth the risk. Having munchable pests around, as well as nectar and pollen producing plants like lavender, can help attract wasps.

Lady bugs

If you’re not ready to go wasp-mode just yet, we get it.

For a less-stingy but still-predatory bug, lady bugs could be the move. They're gentler on the eyes and there are a number of varieties, from ones that eat a wide variety of pests to ones that prefer to eat single bugs like aphids. Many local garden centers carry lady bugs that you can release into your yard. According to Windbiel-Rojas, the best time to introduce lady bugs into a garden is at dusk.

Parasitoids (wasps, but better!)

OK, back to wasps for a second here — specifically the parasitic kind.

These little guys don’t sting humans, nor do they even really care about us, Windbiel-Rojas said. Instead, they focus on laying their eggs, keeping other garden pests at bay. There are a varieties of parasitoids that target specific pests and they're also available at many garden centers.

Again, they won't sting you, but they leave visual markers of their pest management prowess in the form of tiny “mummies” where their hosts died. Neat!

Praying Mantis (singular)

Listener Jim in Huntington Beach called into the program to ask why, year after year, the 100 baby praying mantises he releases into his yard only result in one or two adult praying mantises.

“Because they’re cannibals,” Windbiel-Rojas said.

As they mature, the Praying Mantises duke it out for territory. But they also show the same aggression to other bugs that they show each other, and make great pest control agents once they become established.

For more on helpful bugs...

...and how to deal with larger pests like gophers (spoiler: the answer isn’t introducing wolves into your backyard), check out the full AirTalk episode below. Windbiel-Rojas also suggests checking out the UC IPM website for more advice and information.

Listen 17:04

Listen: Do you ever struggle to identify whether an insect or animal is beneficial to your garden?

You aren’t the only one! We have some ways can you better leverage nature to help your plants. <br> <br>