While many gardeners may cringe at the site of some of these garden visitors, they help keep the garden in balance when it comes to pests and diseases that can damage edible crops or ornamentals.

Encouraging beneficial organisms into the garden is simple. The trick is in providing habitat and food sources to attracted them.

Adult lacewings and hover flies will feed on pollen and nectar from flowering plants like daisies, sunflowers, cosmos, and salvia.

For parasitic wasps use plants with smaller flowers such as oregano, thyme, dill, and yarrow.

Include a range of heights within plantings so small insects and birds can shelter.

You might also like to read:

To encourage larger predatory insects, such as dragonflies and damselflies, provide a water source.

Apart from a range of insects these predators feed on mosquitoes, which always make them a welcome visitor in any garden.

There are also ground dwelling insects that feed on other insects and their larvae, such as armyworm and slugs.

They are often active at night and seek out the shelter that rocks and logs provide during daylight hours.

Add these elements to your garden to provide ground beetles and reptiles, such as garden skinks, with a suitable habitat.

Attracting birds that feed on insects requires some thought about plant selection.

Many insectivorous birds are of the smaller variety such as wrens and finches. These need protection from larger birds such as noisy minors, butcher birds and currawongs.

Spiny shrubs and dense climbers, particularly local native species, provide the best protection.

To keep a biodiverse garden, seriously consider what chemicals you use.

Pesticides may control one particular pest, but the knock-on effect can be devastating by killing off beneficial organisms.

Biodiversity provides so many benefits to our urban environment by creating habitat, improving pollination, enhancing our sensory experience and pleasure in the garden.

This increases our wellbeing. What's not to love about biodiversity?