Over the eons, Mother Nature has worked out ways for certain kinds of bugs to actually control other kinds of bugs, efficiently and without harsh pesticides. It?s done by making use of the natural food chain.

The vast majority of insects in this world are harmless to humans...only about 2 or 3 percent of all insects are pests! Yet using chemical pesticides indiscriminately kills everything: whether good, bad or just passing through. Knowledgeably using beneficial insects, on the other hand, kills only the insects that are our enemies.

Believe it or not, most insects are good to have around. Kill them, and you?ll leave the door open for millions of bad bugs, which now have no natural enemies. These "bad" bugs can cause real damage (cutworms munching on your plants, for instance), or can be bothersome (as with aphids? "honeydew" dripping on your car). Insect pests are most common in what?s called monocultures, such as a farm with only one crop or a yard where one plant predominates. A wide variety of plants, therefore, is the first step toward safe insect control. Another vital step is to avoid using synthetic, non-selective bug killers.

Yes, maybe there are little bugs on the leaves of your roses, but do you really know if they?re vital to the plant?s health? Maybe they attract hungry birds, maybe they?re just lunching on some evil insects, or maybe they?re spreading pollen around.

Take a walk through a garden that has no poisonous chemicals sprayed on it and you?ll witness nature doing her best work. Ladybugs and lacewings are eating aphids by the thousands, birds are eating caterpillars, and microscopic wasps are killing borers. Microscopic worms in the soil kill termites and help plants grow. Birds, butterflies and bunnyrabbits have nothing unnatural to fear.

Beneficial insects need flowering herbs, wildflowers and flowering shrubs as a source of nectar and pollen. Spiderwort, goldenrod, clovers, lantana, sunflowers, thyme, fennel, asters, coreopsis, yarrow and gaillardia are just a few of the plants that provide food and shelter for beneficial insects. Also, I strongly recommend the use of native Texas plants in your landscape (due to genetics, our birds and butterflies recognize these before they?ll visit a plant that?s been brought here from another part of our world). Fortunately for Texans, autumn is the very best time of year to plant these things.

The most commonly introduced beneficial insect is the ladybird beetle or ladybug. Ladybugs come in many colors (red, yellow, orange, gray, black), and feed mostly on aphids ? but frequently on thrips, scale insects, mealybugs, whiteflies and mites, too. After you buy them, they?re best released in your yard around sundown, gently laying them at the base of aphid-infested plants. Spray your plants, first, with water, liquid seaweed or sugar-water, to give the ladybugs nourishment during the evening. With this help, each adult ladybug will eat about 5,000 aphids. They also lay eggs on the outside of leaves; the dark, flightless larvae will each eat 50 or 60 aphids per day. Release about 1,500 ladybugs per 1,000 square feet of vegetation, spreading it over a three week period. Many stores sell packages of ladybugs, but avoid buying ones that are just sitting on store counters at room temperature ? the bugs may be dead. Also, spraying a chemical pesticide while they?re in your yard will surely kill them.

Green lacewings are another popular beneficial insect that many stores sell. They?ll consume huge quantities of mealybugs, aphids, thrips, spider mites, corn earworms and other soft-bodied insects. Sprinkle them directly onto the plants that are worst off. Release them at a rate of 2,000 per acre; do it every two weeks, a total of three times.

Trichogramma wasps are very popular for insect control. They?re very tiny (4 or 5 will fit on the head of a pin) and totally harmless to humans. They?ll lay eggs in (and therefore kill) the eggs of black flies, webworms, hornworms, cutworms and many others. These microscopic wasps are shipped to stores on small cards that look like sandpaper ? pin the cards to a tree trunk (or under the eaves of your house) out of direct sunlight - about 10,000 per acre every 7-14 days during the spring and early summer.

Beneficial nematodes are microscopic worms that live in the soil and attack soil-borne pests such as grubs, fleas, cutworms, ants, and termites. Almost all soils have a few already (unless you use a lot of pesticide or weed and feed fertilizer) but you can also buy them in many stores. Adequate soil moisture is essential for them to do their work, so water thoroughly before and after application.

There are many other beneficial insects around. Ground beetles eat flea beetles, slugs, cutworms and leafhoppers. Mud daubers eat lots of spiders, crickets, flies and cicadas. Centipedes eat spiders and snails. Braconid wasps are tiny black wasps that parasitize tomato hornworms, armyworms and cabbageworms. Damselflies and dragonflies stick close to water features and eat lots of mosquitoes, gnats and aphids.

Give beneficial insects a try. They were here doing their jobs safely and efficiently long before any chemical companies opened for business. They?re a lot cheaper and far more effective than indiscriminate, artificial pesticides that will poison anything that dares to visit your yard, including kids, pets, butterflies and birds.

Owen Yost is an area Landscape Architect specializing in designing low-maintenance landscapes incorporating native plants with hardscape such as decking, fences, terraces, walkways, walls etc. He is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Keep Denton Beautiful and the Native Plant Society of Texas. His Denton office is at 4516 Coyote Point; call 940.382-2099 or 383-9655. E-mail, Yost87@charter.net