Beneficial Garden Animals

Wren eating a bug

​Have you ever seen an insect in your garden and been excited? It may sound crazy to some, but there are a number of insects and critters you want to have making a home near your garden.

Bacteria and micro organisms can be your gardening friend. Beneficial nematodes and milky spore bacteria can be purchased and added to your garden. Bacillus thuringiensis, most commonly called Bt, can control caterpillars, worms, and beetles. 

Beneficial Nematodes can control black flies, maggots, mosquitoes, grubs, yellow jackets, caterpillars and more.

Robins and wrens are species of bird which eat beetles, cutworms, and grasshoppers. Use a bird house to attract these birds to make a more permanent home near your garden. Chickens are also good at eating insects, plus you get eggs!

There are quite a few bugs that are the “good kind of bug” list. Lacewings and ladybugs love to eat scale and aphids. Hoverflies eat aphids. The live in dill and fennel plants. Praying mantis eat a large variety of insects. Parasitoid wasps sound like something on your kill on site list, but they can really help out with tomato hornworms and cabbageworms. They want to be around ground cover so plant some alyssum to attract them.

Snakes! Well, garter snakes. These snakes really help out around the garden since they eat crickets, grasshoppers, and more pests.

Toads are considered gross by a lot of people, yet they do a very good job protecting your garden from slugs and other bugs. You can buy a toad house online and put it by your garden. It will attract a personal toad security guard and give your garden some character.