Insectary Gardening

From Earth Easy

Tips and Suggestions for Your Insectary Gardening

Intersperse vegetable beds with rows or islands of insectary annuals. This will add decorative elements to your vegetable beds while luring beneficials toward prey.
Allow some of your salad and cabbage crops to bloom. Brassica flowers (cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, bok choy) are also attractive to beneficial insects.
Include plants of different heights in your insectary. Ground beetles require the cover provided by low-growing plants such as thyme, rosemary, or mint. Lacewings lay their eggs in shady, protected areas, so providing such places near crop plants is a good idea.
Tiny flowers produced in large quantity are much more valuable than a single, large bloom. Large, nectar-filled blooms actually can drown tiny parasitoid wasps.
Members of the Umbelliferae family are excellent insectary plants. Fennel, angelica, coriander, dill, and wild carrot all produce the tiny flowers required by parasitoid wasps.
Composite flowers (daisy and chamomile) and mints (spearmint, peppermint, or catnip) will attract predatory wasps, hoverflies, and robber flies.
Grow green manure. Clover and vetch, commonly used as cover crops for soil enhancement, are also effective insectary plants.
Herbs (coriander, dill and fennel) will attract hoverflies, lacewings, ladybugs, and tachinid flies to your garden. Coriander (cilantro) is one of the top insectary plants. Caraway, chervil, dill, fennel, and parsley flowers are also valued insectary plants.

“Mini Insectary” Plants	Beneficial Predators Attracted
Achillea filipendulina (Yarrow)	Lacewings, Aphidius, Ladybugs
Alyssum	Hoverflies, Lacewings, Tachnid flies
Amaranthus (Amaranth)	Ground beetles
Anethum graveolens (Dill)	Ichneumon wasp, Ladybugs, Lacewings
Angelica gigas (Korean angelica, giant angelica, purple parsnip)	Lacewings
Convolvulus minor (Dwarf Monring Glory)	Ladybugs, Hoverflies
Coreopsis (Tickseed)	Hoverflies, Lacewings, Parasitic wasps
Cosmos bipinnatus (Garden Cosmos)	Hoverflies, Parasitic wasps, Lacewings
Digitalis (Foxglove)	Dicyphus
Daucus Carota (Queen Anne’s lace)	Lacewings, Ladybugs, Hoverflies
Foeniculum vulgare (Fennel)	Foeniculum vulgare (Fennel)
Helianthus annulus (common Sunflower)	Pirate bugs, Beneficial mites,, Aphidius, Parasitic wasps
Iberis umbellata (Candytuft)	Hoverflies
Limonium latifolium (Statice)	Hoverflies, Parasitic wasps
Lupine	Aphidius, Aphidoletes, Hoverflies
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm)	Parasitic wasps, tachinid flies
Petroselinum crispum (Parsley)	Parasitic wasps, hoverflies, tachinid flies
Scabiosa (Pincushion flower)	Hoverflies, Parasitic wasps
Shasta Daisy	Pirate bugs, Beneficial mites

Tanacetum vulgare (Tansy)	Ladybugs, Lacewings
Verbascum thaspus (Mullin)	Dicyphus

Beneficial Predators	Prey
Aphidius (Parasitic wasps)	Aphids
Aphidoletes (Small midge)	Aphids
Beneficial mites (many species)	Thrips, spidermite, fungus gnats
Damsel Bugs (Nabidae)	Eggs of many pest insects
Dicyphus	Whiteflies, aphids, thrips, spider mites
Ground Beetles	Slugs, small caterpillars and grubs
Hoverflies	Aphids, mealybugs and others
Lacewings	Scale, aphids, mites, softbodied insects
Ladybugs	Aphids, mites
Pirate Bugs	Thrips, aphids, mites, scales, whiteflies
Tachinid flies	Caterpillars, beetle and fly larvae
Parasitic Wasps (many species)	Whiteflies, moth, beetle and fly larvae

ASHLAND GARDEN CLUB