>>1309942>>1309943I'll add my own anecdotes: My flowering mints are really good at attracting pollinators & all manner of other things. Bee Balm attracts hummingbirds (they also eat small insects like mosquitoes), bumble bees, carpenter bees, and several types of solitary sweat bees. The bumble bees make a hole in the base of each flower to rob nectar, so the bee balm doesn't really get pollinated very well by those. Catnip attracts all those, minus the hummingbirds, but also attracts wasps, cabbage moths, vine borer moths, and a few soldier beetles though I've not seen any on my catnip this season. They seem to prefer queen anne's lace (QAL) and the effing love golden rod (very late season bloomer.) Of course their name is "goldenrod soldier beetle" after all. Anyway several solider beetle species eat pests like aphids. I rarely see honeybees on the catnip, but there's usually 1-2 flying around on them.
A local weed called Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) is really tall and nice for attracting soldier beetles, butterflies, moths, and several types of bees and wasps. The same goes for Tall Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea). Both easily reach 7'+ & are great backdrop plants, as is edible Sunchoke (Helianthus tuberosus).
>umbelsI have a huge patch of poison hemlock (might be cow parship or one of the many other look-alikes, I've not endeavoured to check) on the property and the types of insects that love those flowers seems a bit different to those on the QAL flowers. Flies and sweat bees are the most common on both. I've yet to see a crab spider on any of the p.hemlock, but nearly every q.a.lace flower has at least one in hiding. There are done of little black beetles on QAL
I've noticed that dragonflies and damselflies are also attracted to the flowers in order to catch the tiny pollinators. That has the added benefit of them catching mosquitoes too. Of course, you usually need a body of water somewhere in the area within about 500-1000 feet of the garden area.