If only the multitudes of bugs that inhabit the garden in summer would agree to wear tiny white or black hats. That way gardeners could distinguish the helpful bugs from the marauders as easily as fans of old westerns could tell the hero from the villain.
A Downstate professor of insect ecology has devised the next best thing: a handy set of 31 laminated photos of beneficial insects and bug-killing diseases that are likely to show up in Midwestern gardens. Think of it as a “Most Wanted” list. Even though they have names like Ambush Bug, Assassin Bug and Minute Pirate Bug, they’re the ones who should be made to feel right at home in the garden.
For anyone who has suffered the onslaught of voracious plant-eating insects, these really are the heroes who ride–or buzz–to the rescue. They’re predator insects that feast on other bugs, and diseases that wipe out bugs (good or bad)–two important allies to have when you want to keep pesticide use to a minimum.
Michael Jeffords, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Natural History Survey, developed the cards.
“We get tons of calls from people who have insects in their gardens, and a lot of the calls are on things that they shouldn’t be worried about or that are beneficial,” he says.
Gardeners who know they already have beneficial insects in their gardens, Jeffords says, will be less inclined to drench the garden with potentially harmful pesticides. Instead, they can let the naturally occurring predators handle their dirty work–in a cleaner, more natural way.
“If you find you have aphids in your cabbage, but there are four or five lady beetles in the cabbage patch,” Jeffords says, “they’ll take care of the aphids for you. If you have predacious things in the garden, you don’t have to worry so much about severe plant damage.”
Help is at hand
Called “The Good Guys! Natural Enemies of Insects” and designed with both farmers and gardeners in mind, the card set is sure to prove itself valuable with gardeners, says Suzanne Bissonnette, an Integrated Pest Management educator for the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service.
“When all you have is two tomato plants, you need to know right away if these insects you’ve found on them have the potential to cause damage,” Bissonnette says.
With a packet of “Good Guys!” cards, finding out is as easy as flipping through the 31 cards to see if what you’ve found is on the list of honored guests.
Unfortunately, Jeffords acknowledges, a bug that doesn’t show up in the cards could still be a beneficial–or at least harmless–insect.
“Because any insect that isn’t herbivorous (a plant-eater) is OK to have around, there may be as many as 5,000 types of insects you could find in the garden and not have to worry about,” he says.
Nevertheless, he assures that the featured bugs are by far the most common helpers.
Each card measures 3 by 4 inches, and the set is bound with a ring; it’s a compact and portable set that easily can be toted out to any spot in the garden where bugs have been discovered.
The skinny on bugs
On one side of each card is a photo or photos. They’re as near life-size as possible, to aid in quick identification, and most photos include a key showing the actual length of the bug.
The other side has common and Latin names, further identifying details, an explanation of what the bug or disease attacks, notes on which good bugs may bite humans, and other information–some of it fascinating for the armchair student of the garden’s mini-wildlife. For example: Usually, brown or gray stink bugs are good and green ones are bad. And although adult fireflies eat little or nothing, their larvae feed on evil slugs, snails and insects.
Beyond providing individual bug bios, the “Good Guys!” card set can help gardeners recognize a larger point, Bissonnette says. “The cards are a good way to point out that not everything that moves in the garden has the potential to do harm,” she says.
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A complete set of “The Good Guys! Natural Enemies of Insects” cards costs $8. To order, send a money order or a check made out to Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign, Ill. 61820.
