There are a large amount of insects and bugs that can infest your gardens and damage your plants through out the year, and while some of these critters can do your plants alot of good by targeting and preying on unwanted insects on your plants there are also a number of insects you definitely do not want around your garden.
The majority of bugs and insects around will not do your plants any harm but the major concerns would be Aphids, white fly, scale and various species of mites, aphids can ruin plants in a short amount of time as they consume the new growth of the plants and suck the sap out, and they can be in found in large quantities under leaves and lurking on the steams of plants.
Scale can also be a major problem in gardens these insects do not even look like an insect, they are covered in a protective armour or shell that looks more like a small growth on the plant, these insects like the aphids are sap suckers and they are also usually found in large numbers when identified on plants making them hard to eradicate.
Spider mites, including the red mite, two spotted spider mite, cyclamen mite and clover are very tiny insects, they are very difficult to see, and as the name suggests they look like miniature spiders, when these insects have ideal conditions they can spread very rapidly through a garden, they like warm dry conditions and when discovered in your garden you need to move quickly to eradicate them before they spread.
Fortunately there are a great number of insects that can be very beneficial to our gardens and help and work with us to eradicate these insects that can ruin our plants, the lady birds are one such insect that can help, these beautiful little bugs love to eat the aphids that suck the sap from our plants and a few lady bird species also love to eat scale as well so always encourage the lady bird to live in your garden.
While spider mites can be a huge problem in the garden there are other species of mites around that just love to eat spider mites, these good mites are generally a lot larger in size than the spider mites making them easy to identify in the garden.
Ground beetles usually the black ones with the hard shell are another great bug to have in your garden, the beetles are usually found hiding under leaves and litter on the ground, there main source of food are slugs which is great as the beetle will find its prey before it finds your plants they also feed on other insects that live under the litter layer.
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