By establishing your landscape, you've created an ecosystem, and many of the insects that live there serve a purpose.
Ladybugs and lacewings prey upon damaging aphids and whiteflies. Ground beetles eat caterpillars and Colorado potato beetles, so they may serve an important function in your garden.
If pests are damaging your plants, you can bring in more of those beneficial insects.
If you find exotic plant species like bindweed, knapweed, or Canada thistle wreaking havoc on your landscape, you can even call in the Department of Agriculture for insect assistance.
The Department of Agriculture's Request-a-Bug service operates an insectary that provides biological pest controls — aka, bugs — that prey upon those invasive plants. They have 11 different programs (scroll to the bottom of Request-a-Bug page to see all of them).
Colorado residents may request the biocontrols for a fee, and if supplies are sufficient, the Department of Ag will ship them to you, along with instructions for releasing them in your landscape.
Fees currently run around $30 depending on the request. Supplies are limited and vary year to year. Consequently, the Insectary may not be able to provide beneficial bugs for every request per season.
The advantages of biological controls include lessening or eliminating the use of pesticides and establishing useful populations of predatory insects.
As with other treatments, more than one control might be required.
By establishing your landscape you’ve created an ecosystem, and many of those insects serve a purpose.