Are you wondering if insect hotels are good or bad? Dive into the pros and cons, get insect hotel ideas and inspiration, find out the reasons for installing an insect hotel in the garden, and get tips on finding the best site to place an insect or bug hotel. Learn how to support pollinators, bees an
Growing okra in your garden?
There are many natural solutions that can help you rid your garden of harmful insects. But first, you need to identify these pests.
Bad Garden Bugs, insects, flies, caterpillars, and wasps learn which garden pests are harmful and which are beneficial insects. Common "bad bugs" [GUIDE[
In this article, you will learn about the good and bad bugs that may inhabit our gardens and their effect on our plants. You will also find out how to attract beneficial organisms and choose plants that will help your garden thrive.
THESE BUGS EAT YOUR GARDEN PLANTS
10 Beneficial Insects you want in your garden! Not all insects are helpful in the garden. Check out our list to find out who your insect friends are!
Don’t swat another fly until you read this informative article from Gardener’s Path about beneficial insects, and how they help to keep your garden healthy.
Easy to make and use, this all natural insect spray DIY for gardens was tested on badly attacked plants and worked with only 2 applications!
Dahlias are stunningly beautiful, relatively easy, but discovering dahlia insect pests on your prized plants is a frustrating, disheartening experience. Click here to learn about insects that like dah
Insect ID Chart
What Are Grasshoppers? Grasshoppers are herbivorous insects with angled hind legs that they use for jumping. There are at least 30 varieties in the United States that are considered plant-damaging pests and, in large numbers, can cause significant losses to your crops. There are about 600 varieties in total, but not all of them harm crops.
A quick visual card to identify the good bugs vs bad bugs in your northeast garden. Use this guide to avoid removing important bugs.
As if weeds and weird weather weren't bad enough, gardeners also have to face insect pests. Here's how to deal with them.
Get help with insect garden pests! If you want some alternatives to just grabbing that bottle of pesticide chemical junk, read on.
A quick visual card to identify the good bugs vs bad bugs in your northeast garden. Use this guide to avoid removing important bugs.
Calendulas are good companion plants. Or are they? They seem to attract pests too. Learn which bugs eat these flowers, good and bad, at Gardener’s Path.
If you are a gardener by hobby and a nature enthusiast by heart, chances are that you are already familiar with the concept of insect hotels (also known as bee hotels). Offering a sanctuary to bene…
Are you finding tiny white bugs on plant leaves? You may have whiteflies. Learn to eliminate them from your garden in our pest guide!
Green Lacewing are efficient natural predators perfect for aphid control. In the larval stage, these ferocious predators devour many harmful pest insects.
When this pest's predators are absent, an infestation can quickly destroy crops.
Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis stricta) is one of the most tenacious of garden weeds. Here's how to get rid of yellow wood sorrel from your lawn.
I don’t know if you follow me on pinterest, or even have a pinterest account, but if you do you will probably know that recently I have become a little bit obsessive with things for my garden that I think the boys will love. The weather seems to be getting better again, and hopefully it will stay that way, so we are ditching the blankets and indoor snuggles for playing outside and going crazy with our crafts, toys and outdoor accessories! Here are my 7 must have things for your garden to keep the kids entertained this summer! 1. Old plant pot? No silly, it’s a fairy house and garden! This image was taken from pinterest, I love the design of this little fairy garden, so easy to do and perfect for little ones to interact with nature and enjoy! You can find it on my exterior ideas pinboard. This is the easiest craft to do! Literally that old plant pot that you have ignored all winter, and then managed to pretend isn’t an eyesore in your garden over the last few weeks of spring is now a world of possibilities – at least as far as your kids are concerned! What we have been doing is collecting stones from all of our family trips, and then we are going to use some edible flowers (faires have gotta eat, ya know) from In the koop (you can read my post about them here) to decorate. The houses are super easy to make with twigs and bits of wood, but you could buy a small house for a fish tank or something and use that! Make it your own completely and just wait for the magic to happen! 2. Create a butterfly heaven! This was taken from the brilliant site the cards we drew – they have some wonderful home and garden tips on there! Both of my boys LOVE going to tropical gardens, be it at the zoo or elsewhere, and last year at the bottom of our street we had a plant that seemed to just drive the butterflies wild. It was great and they would spend ages (usually when I had an appointment and was in a rush – naturally) just looking and pointing and clapping at the butterflies. I think it is such a great idea, even something as simple as having a few bowls of sweet water in the middle of some butterfly attracting plants, will draw them in and then you will be able to put your feet up and enjoy the beautiful. Click the image for more tips and ideas of what will be the best plants to use! 3. Forget throwing out old oversized toys, up cycle them and create a plant pot! We all have those toys that drive us crazy because they are too big and such a pain in the house! Why not turn it into a plant pot!? I think it is pretty safe to say we all have those toys. Those toys. The ones that are huge, bash into things – firm favourites that always result in tears and then temper tantrums because they have been taken away. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to take that toy and turn it into a flower pot?! Give it a go before you decide to throw! 4. Every garden needs a bird house. Fact. There are 1000’s of different ways to make a bird house, you can use pretty much anything! Let your imagination go wild and follow the basic principles on this site. Living in the countryside we get our fair share of birds in the garden, but let’s be honest, it doesn’t matter where you live, you can’t be a parent and want a child friendly garden without having some way to attract some wildlife into the garden… birds are one of the easiest and most fun animals to attract into the garden. Click the image to see a tutorial on making your own, with 1000’s of different styles and uses for random household objects! 5. No Mama, paddling pools are sooo out. Water pillows are in! Roo thought it was so much fun! He had such a blast ‘finding fishes’. You may remember my post (you can read it here) about giant water pillows. This is something that everyone should have in their garden, it is way more fun than a paddling pool and a thousand times less likely to turn your garden into a muddy puddle when you empty it! Give it a go, you know you want to 7. Make a bug hotel, because kids love bugs! I know, I know – bugs, eww! But the fact remains, kids love bugs and they are so fascinating to learn from. This is from the brilliant learning landscape design and you can see a full tutorial on their site. Kids love bugs, its a fact. If you are a mama who cringes when you lift up a rock and see a plethora of things with too many (or too few!) legs, then this may not be your things, however if you can stomach it bug hotels are a great way for kids to learn about nature and the ones on this site are super stylish too! So that’s it! Do you have any of these awesome things in the the garden for kids? I can’t wait to get started with a few more of them in my garden, how fun 🙂 Harriet x
Adult lacewings feed on pollen and nectar. Not bad for your garden at all. But what you really want is the larvae. Lacewing larvae are known as the “aphid lion” for a very good reaso…
Good Bugs vs. Bad Bugs Science Activity for kids and classrooms teaches children which bugs (insects) are pollinators and garden helpers and which bugs are pests. Instructions: Divide a large poster board into four sections, 2 on top, 2 on the bottom. Cut out the pictures (with the words) and the large words at the top of each section. Tape or glue the large words at the top of each of the four sections on your poster board. Place painter’s tape (or magnets or velcro*) on the back of each picture and have the children try to figure out from the description at the bottom of each insect which category they belong in. *If using magnets or velcro, glue one side to the back of each picture and one side to the board. Note: You can laminate the pictures so that they are sturdier and will last longer.
With all the attention to milkweeds and the decline of monarch butterflies more and more people are searching milkweeds for the monarch butterfly eggs and caterpillars. Often what they find is something else!
Grasshoppers have been the bane of gardeners for centuries. These insects are responsible for consuming up to 25% of the available forage in the western half of the US each year. That’s a lot of food that could have been available to people and livestock. A heavy grasshopper infestation can reduce a garden to stubble... Click here to read more...
There are simple, organic steps that you can take to reduce the number of cucumber beetles, minimize the damage they inflict and the diseases which they carry.
Some of the most eye-catching plant cultivars can be invasive, poisonous, or attractive to unwelcome insects. Of course, what’s bad in one garden might be OK in another.
Come learn how to find and identify the top 18 common garden pests! Also become familiar with beneficial insects, so they are not accidentally harmed.
For many of us, the sight of a creepy-crawly bug in our beautiful garden stirs an age-old instinct - SQUASH IT. But wait! Before you pulverize that little critter, take a second look. Many of
Learn How To Get Rid Of Hornets - Ground hornets ferocious predators, feed on beneficial insects important to the garden eco-system. [LEARN MORE]
When you grow a garden, the pests and bugs are bound to show up. Here are a few natural pest control methods you can use to help keep the bad bugs at bay.
