Learn about the Bugs in Your Garden!

Gardens are home to pretty flowers and healthy plants. They're also home to bugs, some good and some bad. Good bugs pollinate plants to help them make new plants, and they also eat bad bugs. Bad bugs hurt plants by eating parts of them or by spreading diseases to them. For instance, caterpillars eat plant leaves, which hurts the plants. To keep plants healthy, gardeners need to make sure that only good bugs are in their gardens.

Bugs We Like!

Many types of bugs, such as flies, are helpful in your garden. For example, the larvae of syrphid flies eat hundreds of aphids, protecting plants from the damage aphids do. Beetles are also important in your garden. Ground beetles eat moths, slugs, and snails at night, keeping them from eating plant leaves. Ladybugs eat mites and mealybugs, while the larvae of lacewings eat aphids.

• Four Insects You Want to See in Your Garden

• Useful Bugs in Your Garden

• Top Five Beneficial Bugs for Gardens

• Good Bugs for Your Garden

• 22 Beneficial Insects and How to Attract Them

• Bugs to Look for in a Healthy Garden

• Ten Bugs You Should Never Kill in Your Garden

• 14 Beneficial Insects

Pollination

Pollination allows flowers to make fruit and seeds that can become new plants. Many bugs help to pollinate plants. When a bee flies onto a flower to eat nectar, it picks up pollen from the anther of a flower on its body, and some of the pollen it's already carrying falls off onto the stigma. The pollen helps the flower to make fruit and seeds. Bees, wasps, ants, and flies all help flowers to pollinate.

• Insects and Pollinators

• Beetles and Pollination

• Seven Pollinators That Aren't Bees or Butterflies

• Which Insects Pollinate Flowers?

• What Is Pollination?

• Foods and Their Pollinators

Bugs We Don't Like

Some types of bugs are harmful for plants. Aphids drink plant sap, while caterpillars and slugs eat the leaves and stems of plants, killing the plants. Also, some types of bugs can harm pollinators, which keeps plants from making fruit and seeds.

• How to Get Rid of the Ten Worst Garden Insects

• The Ten Most Destructive Garden Insects and How to Remove Them

• Garden Pests

• What Are Good and Bad Bugs in the Garden?

• How to Rid Your Garden of Cockroaches

• 17 Plants That Repel Squash Bugs

• Seven Flowers That Naturally Repel Insects

Fun Bug Facts

• Ladybugs can eat thousands of pests, such as aphids.

• Caterpillars can have more than ten eyes.

• Insects have a three-part body: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen.

• Some types of ants can jump seven times the length of their bodies.

• There are more than 8,000 types of ants.

• Hornets can eat bees.

• Honeybees need to take more than ten million trips to flowers to collect enough nectar to make just one pound of honey.

• Cockroaches are known for being able to live through just about anything. They can live for up to a month without food. And they can even live for a week or more without their heads!

• Crickets have ears located below the knees of their front legs.

Bug Games and Activities

Games are a fun way to learn about bugs in the garden. Whether you're playing gardening games or building paper bugs, you can learn about different bugs and how to protect your garden from pests and keep your plants safe with fun activities.

• Bug Builder: Learn about the different parts of common bugs or design your own with this game.

• Animal and Insect Sounds: Hear the sounds that bats and insects make as they fly.

• Insect-Themed Activities for Young Children: Build paper bugs and create an insect zoo with these fun activities for preschool children.

• Hungry Caterpillar Play Dough Storytelling: Create your own caterpillar and act out the classic Eric Carle story.

• The Good Bug vs. Bad Bug Game: Learn about good and bad bugs in a fun game with puppets.

• Angry Bees Game: Make pom-pom bees and a catapult to help them fly to a flower.

• Colorful Caterpillar Pattern Craft: Build colorful caterpillars out of craft noodles and learn about the parts of a bug.

Bug Videos

You can also learn more about bugs by watching videos. Discover insects by making an outdoor insect trap, or listen to a poem to learn about the life of a bug. Have fun while learning natural ways to remove pests and protect endangered species of insects!

• Inspect an Insect: Find out about different kinds of bugs and learn to identify them in this video.

• Garden Insects: Make a trap to collect and learn more about insects.

• Common Garden Bugs: Identify pests living in your garden and learn how to remove them.

• Managing Garden Pests While Keeping Plants Safe: Here are natural methods for protecting your garden from pests.

• Insecta: A Poem on the Life of an Insect: Watch insects move, fly, and eat while learning about how bugs develop by listening to this poem.

• The Life and Development of Butterflies and Moths: Learn about the parts of butterflies and moths, how they develop, and what they eat.

• Science Trek: Insects: This video was created to teach kids about insects and protecting endangered species.

Written By Ava Rose.