Dragonflies aren’t a particularly dangerous insect to have humming about your yard. Dragonflies are harmless to people, and they can eat actual insect problems and lure birds to your yard.
If the sheer amount of dragonflies in your yard is an annoyance to you, there are a few options for getting rid of them without using pesticides or killing these important insects. Let’s discuss different methods on how to get rid of dragonflies.
Dragonflies feed in groups and lay their eggs in a garden pond or pool while eating mosquitos and other nibbling insects you don’t want around. Keeping dragonflies around is a great way to combat pests, but it can pose problems if you have a pond or own a pool.
Even though dragonflies cannot sting or bite, they can fly up to 36 mph in 6 directions and can dive-bomb individuals on the patio or in the pool, which can be frightening and threatening.
- How To Get Rid Of Dragonflies: A Garden Guide
- Target Insect Food to Make Your Yard Less Attractive
- Dry Up the Water Sources
- Add a Pond Dye to Your Water
- Get Rid of the Larvae to Stop Dragonflies from Breeding
- Add Natural Predators to Your Yard
- Use Salt to Get Rid of Dragonflies
- Use a Chemical Fertilizer to Keep Mosquitoes from Breeding
- Use a Misting System to Kill Dragonfly Larvae
- Natural Insecticides to Get Rid of Dragonflies
- Use Ultrasonic Repellers to Keep Dragonflies Away
- Final Remarks
How To Get Rid Of Dragonflies: A Garden Guide
Target Insect Food to Make Your Yard Less Attractive
- Because it’s usually pointless to kill dragonflies, it’s a better idea to make your yard less appealing to them.
- Dragonflies, for example, consume mosquitoes, so eliminating them from your yard can dissuade dragonflies from setting up home.
- One strategy to limit mosquito populations is to prevent water from gathering in low locations in your yard.
- It’s also important to look after your garden.
- As dragonflies eat a variety of insects that might harm flowers and vegetables, properly watering and caring for your plants can help prevent pests from infiltrating your yard in the first place. If these bugs aren’t present, the dragonflies will likely go elsewhere.
Dry Up the Water Sources
- In addition to limiting their food supply, you can also make your yard less attractive to the dragonflies by distracting them.
- Dragonflies are attracted to standing water in ponds and puddles, so reduce these features’ attractiveness by applying a layer of mulch around the edges. If the ground is still wet after a couple of days, the mulching wasn’t done properly.
Add a Pond Dye to Your Water
- If you have a pond, another strategy for making your water less attractive is adding a dye to it.
- A few drops of dye can make your pond unattractive to dragonflies; they are particularly sensitive to blue and green colors so these dyes might be the most effective.
- One problem with this method is that adding dye can kill fish in your water supply, so you should speak to a local pond specialist about dyeing ponds.
Get Rid of the Larvae to Stop Dragonflies from Breeding
- If possible, remove any abandoned insects’ nests or dragonfly larvae near your yard to discourage them from breeding.
- Adult dragonflies won’t lay eggs in your yard if there aren’t any larvae, so take away their cause for staying, and they will wander off instead of spending all season around your home.
Add Natural Predators to Your Yard
- Adding natural predators to your yard is a great way to control the dragonfly population. Turtles, birds and bats are natural predators of dragonflies.
- Putting up nest boxes or bird feeders will give these animals a reason to live in your yard, and they’ll eat any dragonflies that are living nearby.
- Adding predator insects to your yards, such as robber flies or assassin bugs, will also reduce the population of adult dragonflies living nearby.
- One such predator is aquatic worms. Dragonflies will lay their eggs in moist soil, and as such, they prefer areas with lots of worms as these prey items are excellent egg protectors; if the eggs hatch, the worms will eat them.
- Worms can be added to your yard by running a hose over moist soil for several hours. The worms will surface and be collected before being added to your garden.
- Another predatory option is frogs, which eat dragonfly larvae in the water.
- You can add frog eggs or tadpoles to your pond when the dragonfly larvae arrive as a way of adding natural predators to your yard.
- This method won’t stop adult dragonflies from staying around, but it will reduce the density of larvae and might keep enough from hatching to discourage the insects from staying in your garden all season long.
- One strategy uses nematodes – tiny worms that prey on and control many types of larvae and insects.
- Several species of nematode work against dragonflies, so you should be able to find one that’s appropriate for your location.
Use Salt to Get Rid of Dragonflies
- Salt is a very effective way to eliminate any dragonflies in your yard.
- Adding salt to standing water will kill larvae in your pond, stopping them from maturing into adult dragonflies.
- But salt is also effective at killing any insects that happen to be swimming in your water and attracts more dragonflies who want to soak up some of this prey.
- One warning about salt is that it can kill any fish or aquatic frogs living in your water, so only use salt as a last resort.
- If you have fresh plants in your garden, you can soak them in a saltwater solution for 30 seconds. Saltwater solutions repel dragonflies, and they will escape from them.
Use a Chemical Fertilizer to Keep Mosquitoes from Breeding
- Another strategy for deterring dragonflies is to encourage mosquitoes.
- Mosquitoes prey on dragonfly larvae, so adding fertilizer to your pond will encourage them to breed; they will eat the larvae and reduce their density.
- This method only works in a pond with no fish or larvae. If you have both, then this strategy won’t work.
Use a Misting System to Kill Dragonfly Larvae
- A misting system is a great option to kill off larvae near your yard.
- Set up the mister and run it for about 5 minutes every hour. This will give the larvae no chance to mature into adults because the spray kills them before doing so.
- This method only works for a short period, though; if you use the mister for several days, the water in your yard will be empty of larvae.
Natural Insecticides to Get Rid of Dragonflies
- Neem oil is one natural insecticide that works well against dragonflies.
- It can be used indoors or outdoors, but it only kills larvae, so you should combine this method with some of the other options listed here.
Use Ultrasonic Repellers to Keep Dragonflies Away
- Ultrasonic repellents are great for keeping adult dragonflies away.
- Adult dragonflies are only interested in finding a place to lay eggs, and once they’ve done this, they will move on.
- But once they’ve laid eggs, you’ll want to prevent them from coming back for another round.
- Ultrasonic repellents are a good way of doing this.
- You can also try using predator insects or birds to get rid of dragonflies, but the sound of the repellent will guarantee that they won’t be coming back to your yard.
Final Remarks
If you’re looking after the environment, you may also want to consider a more environmentally friendly approach to getting rid of these pests.
One such method is biological control, which uses insects and other organisms as a natural way of controlling pest populations without pesticides or other chemicals.
There are many other approaches to get rid of dragonflies in your garden that won’t harm the environment or your children and pets. Now that you know how to get rid of dragonflies, you can easily save your garden from them.