Plants That Attract Dragonflies and It’s importance

Dragonflies have various symbolism around the world and provide gardens with many benefits. 🤗 These beneficial insects are skilled hunters some other pollinators from the dragonflies scrounge for food.

Still, for both these reasons, these insects are a blessing to a farm or garden. The dragonfly is harmless, and they deserve much credit as they bite to defend themselves and rid the garden of insect pests.

For this reason, if you are an avid gardener, you will want them grazing on your doorstep as they are pretty little predators.

But why do we say dragonflies are essential to the garden, and what makes them so unique?

Furthermore, once you learn all their benefits, what plants can you grow to attract dragonflies to your garden or vegetable patch?

The Importance of Dragonflies in the Garden

Before we understand the importance of dragonflies and how to invite them to your garden, it helps to understand a bit more about small insects.

According to the University of Florida, the insect has existed for 300 million years. These beneficial bugs are fun to watch, and they fly super fast to eat hundreds of unwanted insects in the garden.

Hence, you have a living pest control that can eliminate a mosquito population in your yard. So, how fast can these insects fly?

According to the IFAS, they can reach 30 miles per hour, which helps them avoid birds that prey on them.

With their colossal compound eyes 👀 they can easily spot other insects to catch them in mid-air. Adult dragonflies go through three life cycles called incomplete metamorphosis:

• Dragonfly eggs/Dragonfly larvae

• Dragonfly nymphs

• Adult dragonflies

The lifecycle from dragonfly eggs reaching an adult can take up to five years and mostly takes place in the nymph stage when still a baby dragonfly.

You find the nymphs living in shallow water like marshes or your backyard pond,

How do Dragonflies Help in Your Garden

You know how annoying a mosquito population can be when nymphs sit and enjoy relaxing outside on summer nights.

The chance is you have standing water nearby not seen, and the mosquito larvae have hatched there.

For this reason, dragonflies spend their time around water ponds thriving on aquatic larvae, mosquito populations, and other insects as follows:

• One of their preferred food is the mosquito population 🦟 as you find them typically near stagnant water where you live.

• Other insects they thrive on, mostly found on outdoor plants, are gnats, grasshoppers, flies, aphids, and midges. So, having dragonfly larvae breeding out in your water feature is a huge benefit for your garden.

So, for this reason, you need to grow plants that attract dragonflies to reduce pest infestations in the garden.

But how do you achieve this? Well, the first thing to have more dragonflies in the garden is to add fresh water to the yard.

It can be an old sink, pond, or any other water feature making, inviting dragonflies enticing them to lay eggs in the water.

But that is not all. If you do not have water, attract pollinators like the dragonfly with the right plants.

Beneficial Plants That Attract Dragonflies To The Garden

Attracting dragonflies to other pollinators in the garden helps provide them with aquatic plants to showy flowers. With an aquatic plant in a pond and some tall plants, you will soon be attracting dragonflies to your yard in no time.

Not only will dragonflies visit your garden, but you will attract butterflies 🦋 as well, which are also beneficial. So grab your garden gloves and a shovel to prepare a herbaceous perennial garden to become the dragonfly’s haven.

Asiatic Lily

While tropical water lilies are fabulous in the pond, nothing attracts dragonflies more than the Asiatic Lily. The bulb enjoys full sun exposure and can reach three feet tall. It thrives in a perennial garden in the USDA zones 4-8 and has showy blooms in vibrant colors.

You can plant them in early spring or fall in a sunny location with well-drained soil. The upright growth attracts dragonflies allowing them a place to perch. But these plants are also the favorite plants of rabbits and deer and will need protection.

Not only will you have dragonflies, but it will also attract butterflies.

Growing Arrowhead Plants

The duck-potato, or arrowhead, is an aquatic plant growing above the water level to offer dragonflies sunny areas to start a nursery.

The perennial can thrive in different climates, even with harsh winters. It can tolerate different light conditions, from partial shade to full sun. It has heart-shaped leaves with white flowers, and you see the flowers bloom in summer.

The best is to buy a live arrowhead plant to place in wetland soil or shallow water.

Water Lily For Adult Dragonflies

Nothing is more magical than growing water lilies in a pond to attract dragonflies. It is an ideal dragonfly habitat to lay eggs.

The floating plants shelter the maturing nymphs, which can grow anywhere in the water. You can find many water lily species available to flourish in your climate.

So, bring in some vibrant white and pink flowers 💐 to your outdoor space. You can even grow them as plant tubers in soil, gravel, or submerged vegetation in a large container filled with water.

Borage Thrives in Partial Sunny Areas

Borage is a unique herb that makes for an attractive addition to any flower garden. The blue star-shaped flowers you see in clusters on tall flower spikes in mid-summer. You can even find them with graceful pale purple flowers.

All parts of the foliage are fuzzy, and it is a low-maintenance plant that grows in moist soil and partial sunlight. The plants grow well in zones 2 to 11 are deer tolerant, and attract dragonflies and pollinators to the garden. It is a self-seeding plant and can grow back yearly.

Butterfly Milkweed

The milkweed is a wildflower that attracts dragonflies and butterflies to the garden and is deer-resistant. The herbaceous perennial thrives in full sun and reaches two feet tall.

It is a native plant that attracts different insects and is the host for Monarch butterfly caterpillars and bees. The flowers bloom in orange clusters through the summer. After flowering, you see pointed seed pods that reveal fluffy white seeds.

It is a low-maintenance plant resistant to rabbits and deer.

Cutleaf Coneflower

For a perfect dragonfly habitat in the garden, the yellow flowers in summer and the fall will attract dragonflies and butterflies.

The perennial loves full sun and is a tall plant reaching up to six feet tall. The plant can even flourish in partial sun and blooms all through summer.

Grow them close to a small pond as they are hardy and reasonably disease-free. These plants put up a dramatic show in a garden.

Swamp Milkweed

Swamp milkweed loves moist soil with full sun; you can plant them in spring or fall. Ensure to place this emergent vegetation 36 inches apart to help them form clumps to fill out around water ponds.

The swamp milkweed attracts butterflies like the Monarch with pink and white flowers. It will become the dragonfly’s favorite plant to breed around, and the long stalks make for ideal perches.

Water Horsetail

The horsetail makes a fabulous addition to the water garden, encouraging and attracting dragonflies to lay eggs and nymphs to emerge later in the water.

They can reach up to three feet with bamboo-like stems, making them tall plants that attract dragonflies. The plant is virtually pest- and disease-free, making for an attractive backdrop along a pond.

You can plant them in water in full to partial sun.

Joe Pye Weed

Joe Pye Weed prefers a sunny spot in soil that is moist. The tall plant reaches up to seven feet tall and is native to central North America.

You can find Joe Pye Weed growing wild in some places where dragonflies exist. You must provide Joe Pye Weed with plenty of space to grow. The plant forms clusters of tiny flowers in pink in spring and will bloom into fall.

These plants are deer and rabbit-tolerant.

Cattail, an Aquatic Perennial

Dragonflies often lay their eggs in cattails, known as a swamp plant. When the dragonfly’s larvae hatch, they climb up the reedy stem.

These are some of the best plants that attract dragonflies as they can grow up to ten feet topped with thick cylindrical brown petal-less flowers.

You can start growing them in loamy soil in clay pots and thrive in humid, warm areas in full light to partial shade.

Black-Eyed Susan

Do you have a small pond? Then no problem, as the dragonfly always appears when the black-eyed Susan grows in the garden.

The plant is drought tolerant, flourishes in dry soil, and thrives in direct sunlight. It can tolerate freezing winter temperatures; you see them return in early fall after you cut them down after flowering.

Yarrow

Yarrows are low-maintenance plants that attract dragonflies. Flowering perennials you can grow from seed or buy them as live plants.

But give them plenty of sun and warmth in the garden. These plants grow in average soil, and they are reasonably disease-resistant.

They bloom in different colors, from yellow to purple flowers. The plant has medicinal properties, but it can become invasive Rein it in to keep them controlled in the garden.

Meadow Sage

The meadow sage prefers dry conditions, but the colorful blooms attract dragonflies to the garden. It produces flower spikes in purple that also attract butterflies to birds and other pollinators. Still, deer 🦌 do not enjoy them, so they can bask in the full sun without getting munched.

Final Thoughts

The above plants will surely do the trick to attract dragonflies to your garden. But if you can also provide them with water to make the garden their home. With some aquatic plants like water lilies, these important insects that play an essential ecological role will ensure your plants remain pest-free.