Beneficial insect & wildlife tracker
Log every ladybug, bee, bird, butterfly, and toad you spot. Your log turns into a month-by-month picture of who's working your garden.
Beneficial insect & wildlife tracker
Log ladybugs, bees, birds, butterflies, toads — anything helpful you spot. Over time you'll see which months your garden is actually alive, and whether your flowers are pulling their weight.
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Who you're looking for
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Adults and larvae devour aphids, scale, and mites.
Workhorse pollinator for squash, melons, and fruit trees.
Buzz-pollinates tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.
Early-spring fruit tree pollinator; nests in tubes.
Cuts neat leaf circles — harmless, great pollinator.
Tiny metallic-green bee; heavy flower visitor.
Needs milkweed to lay eggs; nectar on asters.
Caterpillars feed on dill, fennel, parsley — leave a few plants for them.
Common migratory nectar feeder.
Dusk pollinator that hovers like a hummingbird.
Pollinates tubular flowers and picks off small insects.
Eats grasshoppers, caterpillars, and beetles.
Feeds caterpillars to its chicks all spring.
Relentless hunter of caterpillars and beetles.
Eats flying insects all day long.
Night patrol for voles, rats, and gophers.
Keeps rodent pressure down.
Larvae ('aphid lions') clean out aphids and thrips.
Adults pollinate; larvae eat aphids.
Generalist predator — eats good bugs too, so don't over-release.
Parasitizes hornworms and aphids. Leave white-cocooned hornworms alone.
Night hunter of slugs, cutworms, and root maggots.
Eats aphids and pollinates as a bonus.
Ambushes caterpillars and beetles.
Hits thrips, mites, and insect eggs.
Eats mosquitoes and gnats on the wing.
Free pest control — leave the webs up.
Sign of living soil; aerates and builds castings.
Eats slugs, snails, and beetles all night.
Snacks on ants, crickets, and roaches.
Harmless; eats slugs and rodents.
Thousands of mosquitoes and moths per night.
Log it now, identify it later.
Flowers that pull in the good bugs
- • Borage, alyssum, and cilantro left to bolt
- • Dill, fennel, and yarrow for hoverflies and parasitic wasps
- • Zinnia, cosmos, sunflower for bees and butterflies
- • Milkweed for monarch caterpillars
Water & shelter
- • Shallow dish with pebbles so bees can land
- • Bird bath cleaned weekly
- • Leaf litter and a log pile for beetles and toads
- • Bee hotel or drilled block for mason bees
What kills beneficials
- • Broad-spectrum sprays — even organic ones — applied on open flowers
- • Spraying midday when bees are working
- • Bare, tilled soil with no year-round bloom
- • Removing every 'weed' that flowers