Like any living creature, natural enemies need food, water, and shelter, all generally available in the garden. Here are some ways to attract them and keep them there:
- Provide plant diversity – it encourages a range of types of beneficials.
- Use sequentially flowering species to provide nectar, pollen, and shelter throughout the growing season.
- Include plants with many small flowers – they are preferable to plants with large single flowers.
- Create plantings of varied heights in sun and shade to provide food and habitat for different insect species and life stages.
- Maintain groundcovers and coarse mulches for nonflying predators to hide from their enemies.
- Tolerate low populations of plant-feeding insects and mites so that food is available to the predators.
- Reduce dust – it can interfere with natural enemies.
- Go light on fertilizer – lush new plant growth encourages sucking pests like aphids to reproduce more rapidly than natural enemies can control.
- Avoid the use of pesticides – they don’t discriminate between good and bad bugs.