You've tried soaps, sprays and organic pesticides. Getting rid of predators such as aphids, caterpillars, mealybugs and whiteflies is a gardner's headache. But there is a solution. Try getting them back with their worst enemy: other predators. Here's a list of beneficial bugs that love to do one thing: eat the bugs that are bugging you.

1. Ladybugs. This cute little red insect is the mother of all good bugs. Ladybugs love to eat aphids and will devour up to 50 aphids a day. They will also attack scale, mealybugs, boll worm, leaf hopper and corn ear worm. They dine only on insects and do not harm vegetation in anyway.


2. Green lacewings. Looks are deceiving. This fairylike green lacewing not only devours aphids, caterpillars, mealybugs, leafhoppers, insect eggs and whiteflies, it likes to eat other lacewings. Lacewings are great at camouflage as well, and a thimble would hold about 10,000 lacewing eggs.


3. Encarsia Formosa. The Encarsia Formosa is a parasite of the greenhouse whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum). This garden fighter protects interior plants and outdoor gardens. The greenhouse whitefly is typically found on poinsettias, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other plants that stay fairly close to the ground.


4. Predatory mites (Phytoseiulus persimilus). Predatory mites are adult mites that seek out and kill pest mites, particularly the common spider mite. Spider mites typically feed on the underside of leaves of indoor and outdoor plants and trees.


5. Hover flies. Although these little creatures, also called syrphids, look like small bees, they zip around just like flies, hovering over your garden before they decide to land. The hover fly doesn't wear the best camouflage in the garden; you will always see it working hard. On the good side, a hover fly larva can eat up to 60 aphids a day.


6. Beneficial nematodes. Beneficial nematodes attack more than 230 kinds of soil-dwelling and wood-boring pests, such as flea larvae, Japanese beetles, craneflies, mole crickets, indoor fungus gnats, white grubs, cutworms, corn root worms, strawberry weevils, gypsy moth larvae and cabbage root maggots.


7. Decollate snails (Rumina decillata). Using decollate snails can be an effective way to control pest snails, but it does not happen overnight. It takes a few weeks for them to get established in their environment and have a noticeable effect on the pest snail population and a year or more to really take control.

NEXT: A few extra tips on attracting the good guys