Sucking insects cause plants to turn a pale green or yellow and slow their growth. Holes in plant leaves are just one indication of chewing insects. Insects can damage grass either above or below the ground or in both places. Surface-active insects often do their damage during evening hours.
Some insects and other small pests can cause big problems when they attack your plants. It is often a challenge, though, to detect what is causing the problem and how to treat it.
Bugs eat your plants because they’re hungry and your plants are likely the best option around at the moment. While it’s unfortunate for you as the gardener, it’s also easy enough to understand why it happens. Bugs are like any other living creature, and they’re usually just looking for their next meal.
Here’s the best approach for dealing with them.
Here Are Some tips for Getting Rid of Bugs in Your Lawn and Garden:
Encourage birds to hang out in your yard:
Keep at least one feeder filled with a quality seed blend that will appeal to chickadees, grosbeaks, cardinals and sparrows. Also consider non-melting suet cakes that will keep titmice and woodpeckers coming to your yard. While they’re in the area, they’ll munch on insect larvae.
Birds love to dine on grubs, so if you do not mind birds digging around in your flowerbeds or lawn, invite more of them to hang out in your yard.
Soaps:
Soap works as an insect repellent and can protect your plants from being eaten by bugs.
How insecticidal soap works on plant pests.
Insecticidal soap kill harmful insects like mites, aphids, thrips, white flies and immature leafhoppers. The fatty acids in the soap dissolve the insects’ exoskeleton, causing them to dehydrate.
Insecticidal soaps are effective for sucking, soft-bodied insects like spider mites, aphids, mealy bugs and whitefly. Though they are less effective against adult insects, they can still be used to control their immature larval stages.
Clean the Soil:
It is very important to clean the soil of your garden regularly.
- Prepare a Healthy Soil.
- Regulate soil Moisture.
- Use Good Watering Practices.
- Use Barriers and Repellents.
- Use Insect Traps Routinely.
- Make use of Pesticides.
- Take Advantage of Kitchen Remedies for Pests.
Repellents:
You just have to know which plants repel which bugs and place them strategically throughout your garden.
For example, peppermint and spearmint plants naturally deter ants and aphids.
- The wonderful scent from lavender plants repels moths, fleas, flies and mosquitoes.
- Strong-scented herbs can deter pests when planted among or near the vegetables. This is a super-easy way to support your efforts in preventing garden pests.
- One popular spray uses the natural power of garlic to get rid of beetles.
Build a Bug Trap:
Mechanical traps lure pests away from plants, allowing them to be removed from the garden. Various traps can be purchased at garden stores or made at home.
Make a homemade bug trap-
Fill a quart-size bowl with a sudsy mixture of water and dish soap. Then set a smaller bowl, filled with a quarter-cup of red-wine vinegar, afloat in the center. The vinegar attracts fruit flies, which then get stuck in the suds.
Chemical Cures:
Use only chemicals approved by USDA for use by organic growers, and use them selectively.
- Organic solutions –
Include spraying with horticultural oil (petroleum- or vegetable-based oil used to smother insects), insecticidal soap or neem (insecticide made from a tropical tree by the same name)
Is USDA organic really organic?
Foods that meet USDA organic standards are “certified organic,” also sometimes called “USDA-certified organic.” Organic food in the United States can be identified when the following conditions are met: The product has been certified organic. The product contains 95 percent or more organic ingredients.
Non- Toxic:
- Bacillus thuringiensis
- Garlic
- Kaolin clay
- Corn gluten
- Gibberellic acid
Highly Toxic:
- Diatomaceous earth
- Insecticidal soap and oil
- Pyrethrins
- Rotenone
- Copper
- Lime sulfur and sulfur
- Sabadilla
- Spinosad
- Copper sulfate
Attract Spider:
Spiders are attracted to gardens with many hiding spots. Wood, rock, and compost piles or any other mass of debris will look like a comfortable and safe home to a spider.
Spiders in the garden are beneficial for controlling plant-damaging or simply pesky insects, but also impact other beneficial bugs that have taken up residence.
Spiders can help control flies, mosquitoes, moths, beetles, wasps and other insects, keeping their populations down. This helps protect you from being bitten or stung while you’re working in your garden, and it can help your plants by reducing the number of hungry insects in the area.
Lawn damage from pests can go unchecked and unnoticed until it’s too late and major damage has all but ruined your lawn. You can efficiently and quickly control the situation and prevent these bugs by following this simple tips.