Oh no, hoverflies! The insects drive many a gardener to despair. Combating it is actually quite simple. We reveal which remedies really help, how you can avoid chemical pesticides and what preventative measures you can take against the animals.
How to get rid of hoverflies in the garden?
To combat hoverflies effectively, plant tomatoes and cucumbers, seal gaps in walls, kill aphids using natural means and avoid attractive plants such as carrots, dill, chervil or yellow daisy plants.
Control measures
- Planting tomatoes and cucumbers
- Sealing wall gaps
- Get ahead of the hoverflies
- Avoid attractive plants
Planting tomatoes and cucumbers
The hoverfly likes to lay its eggs on crops. However, the larvae cannot move well on very hairy varieties such as tomatoes and cucumbers and therefore avoid these plants.
Sealing wall gaps
Hoverflies like to retreat into small cracks in walls in winter. If you want to avoid a population in your garden, it is best to seal small gaps as a preventive measure.
Get ahead of the hoverflies
Hoverflies feed on aphids and other small animals. By killing the pests on your plants with home-made plant sprays, you take away the hoverfly's ability to feed. The insects will then look for another place.
Avoid attractive plants
There are many different plants that are particularly attractive to hoverflies. These include:
- Carrots
- Dill
- Chervil
- Marigolds
- Knapweed
- Daisies
- Asters
- and sun hat
Yellow daisy flowers and early bloomers in particular attract hoverflies to your garden. Therefore, choose an alternative planting.
Fighting doesn't always make sense
However, you should know that hoverflies are extremely useful for your garden. In agriculture, they are even used as natural pest controllers in greenhouses in winter. On her menu are
- Aphids
- sawfly
- Spider mites
- and scale insects
Hoverflies look like wasps, but they don't have a stinger and are therefore very harmless. Therefore, think carefully about whether you would rather tolerate a population in your garden and use the measures mentioned above to attract the hoverfly into the garden.
