Beneficial insects, spiders, and other mini-creatures in your garden : who they are and how to get them to stay

Abstract

Most of the insects, spiders, and other mini-creatures that pass through or live in your garden or home landscape are beneficial--or do little to no harm to you or your plants. Only a handful of garden-inhabitingspecies are harmful to your plants; unfortunately,these give the majority of the mini-creatures found in gardens a bad name. An ecologically-healthy garden or landscape has a diverse fauna of insects, spiders, mites, centipedes, and harvestmen--each with a unique, and usually beneficial, role in keeping your backyard habitat healthy and functioningefficiently.