Your garden is full of tiny workers, snackers, and oddballs. Some help your plants, some eat them, and some are just interesting. Here are twelve you'll actually meet, sorted into Helpers, Munchers, and Weirdos.
Tap any bug for what it does and a fun fact. Filter to just the good guys or just the troublemakers.
The Garden Scavenger Hunt and Garden Bingo printables send kids outside to spot these bugs in real life.
Ladybugs and praying mantises eat pests, bees and butterflies pollinate so plants make fruit, and earthworms build healthy soil. Spiders help too. Together they do pest control, pollination, and soil for free.
The leaf-eaters: caterpillars, snails and slugs, and grasshoppers, plus aphids and the ants that protect them. You rarely need chemicals; the helper bugs usually keep them in check.
Yes. A ladybug eats thousands of aphids in its life and spiders eat mosquitoes, flies, and aphids. Both are free pest control, so leave them be.