Insects play a huge role in the Southwestern garden and landscape.

Bees and butterflies help to pollinate flowers, while bats eat pesky insects, like mosquitos and flies, keeping the insect population down.

Attracting these guys to our desert Southwest garden is really very easy. Plant a garden with lots of bee and butterfly attracting plants.

Place a pretty butterfly house in a shady corner and put up a bat house to help-out those little mosquito eating guys!

If you are really serious about attracting bees to your garden and maybe enjoying your own honey as a side benefit, you could try your hand at bee-keeping.

Click here for Butterfly attracting plants.