Helpful Critters in your Garden

There are helpful “critters”, bugs that can help your garden. Bees need little encouragement to come around your garden or your home – just a few flowers will bring the bees. There are other helpful “critters” such as hummingbirds, butterflies and ladybugs that are also helpful.

• Butterflies: your garden loves butterflies because pollen sticks to their legs as they fly from flower to flower. The butterflies help both flowers and vegetables grow.

Invite the butterfly to your garden by making a mud pie. Male butterflies are salt lovers. Put a saucer in your garden with some soil, water and 1 tablespoon of salt and place your “mud pie” in a sunny area where the butterflies are sure to come. Butterflies love the sun – some say they are solar panels.

Another way to attract butterflies is by planting/growing colorful flowers and herbs. Butterflies love sunflowers, zinnias and the butterfly bush. The herbs the butterflies love the most are basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme. The small butterflies love the herbs and the sunflowers bring the big beautiful Monarchs.

• Hummingbirds: The hummingbird has a head that carries the pollen from one flower to the next flower the “hummer” visits.

Attracting hummingbirds is as simple as hanging a sack of scraps. Fill a mesh sack with colorful yarn and feathers and hang in a tree near your garden. The hummingbirds will try to tug out the yarn and feathers to use for their nests.

You can also feed the hummingbirds; the “hummers” are hearty, champion eaters. They will eat half their body weight in food. You can make a hummingbird syrup by combining ¼ cup sugar and 1 cup water and microwave for 1 ½ minutes. Use a hummingbird feeder and refill every two (2) to three (3) days.

Tip: Hummingbirds love to fly through fine mists of water, so put your sprinkler on.

• Ladybugs: Gardens love ladybugs because the ladybugs devour harmful pests including rose ruining aphids. The larvae of ladybugs also eat garden enemies, once in your garden they provide continual protection.

Plant borage to invite the ladybugs into your garden, borage is a pretty blue herb and, if planted, in June the lady bugs will come. Other herbs lady bugs like are parsley and cilantro.

Setting ladybugs free at night: you can buy ladybugs at the local nursery or on-line and then wait until the evening and set them free. To ensure they stay in your garden, you can mix ¼ cup of water and 5oz. of sugar in the garden because they ladybugs love “sweet leaves”.

• Praying mantises: a good critter. Entice them with berries, praying mantises are excellent bug zappers.

• Welcome fireflies with wildflowers. Firefly larvae are eaters of slugs, mites and cutworms.

There are good “critters” so try some of these ideas to help your gardens.

Good luck and remember not all bugs are bad.