I'm pretty new to all this, but this year I ordered some horsemint seeds, not knowing what horsemint was. I can tell you that I am majorly thrilled with this stuff. My one horsemint plant is attracting a gazillion wasps, at least four different varieties, but as far as I can tell these are good wasps. At first I was afraid they were baldfaced hornets, but they are not. I think most of them are scoliid wasps. It seems one type will come and
feed for a while, then they go away and another type will come and feed. They are CRAZY all over this horsemint!
So I was delighted to discover this: "Scoliid wasps are solitary parasitoids of scarab beetle larvae. Female scoliids burrow into the ground in search of these larvae and then use their sting to paralyze them. They will sometimes excavate a chamber and move the paralyzed beetle larva into it before depositing an egg. Scoliid wasps act as important biocontrol agents, as many of the beetles they parasitize are pests, including the Japanese beetle."
And there I thought the milky spore disease I put out last year was working a whole lot better than expected! I really like this horsemint stuff, too. A funky, shaggy, casual-looking plant. I'm definitely planting more.