Protect Them from Pests with Native Texas Flowers!
by MARGARET GNEWUCH | Native Plant Society of Texas | npsot.org/wp/houston
Vegetables depend upon beneficial insects when attacked by destructive plant pests. In her book, Attracting Beneficial Bugs to your Garden , Jessica Walliser writes that plants under attack by plant pests release chemical signals. If beneficial insects are nearby, they respond to the chemical signal and eliminate attacking pest.
Native flowers not only attract beneficial insects but keep them around by providing food and shelter. You can intermingle natives and vegetables or plant a flower border because they have same full sun preference.
Vegetable pests that beneficial insects love to eat:
- Asparagus beetles – damsel bugs, ground beetles, ladybugs, lacewings
- Cabbage worms – syrphid flies, big eyed bugs, damsel bugs, parasitic wasps
- Corn ear worms – big eyed bugs, ground beetles, parasitic wasps, lacewings, minute pirate bugs, spiders
- Colorado potato beetles – ladybugs, robber flies, tachinid flies, assassin bugs, parasitic wasps, ground beetles, damsel bugs, lacewings
- Cucumber beetles – assassin bugs, parasitic wasps, tachinid flies
- Mexican bean beetles – tachinid flies, assassin bugs, ladybugs, robber flies, parasitic wasps
- Squash vine borers – ground beetles, parasitic wasps
- Tomato hornworms – assassin bugs, parasitic wasps
