Hoverflies and parasitic wasps, the others good bugs, are not purchased and instead must be invited to your garden. Since beneficial bugs feed on nectar and pollen from flowering plants, all good bugs, including the bugs you can purchase like ladybugs, praying mantises and green lacewings, can be enticed and encouraged to come into your garden.

You only have to plant their favorite flowers.

Use bachelor buttons, or cornflowers, which make beautiful cut flowers and are easily grown from seed or six-packs. Fragrant and beautiful, sweet alyssum is a popular flower bed edging plant and grows year-round here.

Borage has beautiful, edible, blue flowers, and grows easily from seed. It also re-seeds very easily. Looking a bit like lavender, agastache is a great hot-weather, low-water plant.

Fennel looks sensational in mixed flower borders and can be grown from seed or small plants. When in bloom, ornamental grasses attract beneficial insects and there are lots of choices. Growing corn from seeds or plants has the obvious benefit of homegrown flavor and will also attract beneficial bugs to your garden.

Other good bug attractors include: dill, Scabiosa, sunflower, catmint, coneflower, yarrow, lavender, Queen Anne’s lace, California lilac, cosmos, Pyracantha, milkweed and penstemon.

Remember, to protect your good bugs, you do not want to use synthetic pesticides. Only use organic ones judiciously and carefully. It will help if your entire garden is organic, including fertilizers and amendments.

– Submitted by Armstrong Garden Centers. Gary Jones takes gardening questions growingdialogue@armstronggarden.com, or contact your local Armstrong Garden Center for more information.