Earwigs in the Garden: Friend, Foe, and How to Get Rid of Them

You lift a board or peek under a pot and a cluster of brown, pincer-tailed insects scatters into the mulch. Your instinct might be to grab the spray bottle. Before you do, it's worth knowing what earwigs in the garden are actually up to, because in most established beds, they're doing you a favor.

What Are Earwigs, Exactly?

Meet Forficula auricularia, the European Earwig

The species you're almost certainly finding in your garden is Forficula auricularia, the European earwig, now the dominant earwig species across North America. Adults are about three-quarters of an inch long and reddish-brown, with a flat, segmented body and a pair of prominent curved forceps at the tail end. The forceps look alarming but are mostly used for prey capture, defense, and courtship, they're too weak to break human skin with any force worth worrying about.

Earwigs are omnivores. Their diet spans dead plant matter, fungal material, aphids, mites, small insect larvae, and soft plant tissue. That last item is what causes problems in certain situations, but understanding the full picture is what separates thoughtful management from reflexive spraying.

One genuinely unusual earwig behavior: females guard their egg clutches and newborn nymphs, cleaning and protecting them until the young can fend for themselves. It's a rare level of maternal investment among insects, and it's part of why earwig populations establish quickly in welcoming environments.

Those Pincers Won't Hurt You

The name "earwig" traces to the Old English eare wicga, most likely referencing the shape of the unfolded hindwing, which resembles a human ear, not any actual crawling behavior. There is no credible evidence that earwigs seek out human ear canals. They prefer cool, damp garden debris to warm, dry sleeping humans. That particular piece of garden folklore has been following Forficula auricularia around for centuries without any support to back it up.

The Truth: Earwigs Are Usually Working for You

Aphid Predators in Disguise

This is the part that surprises most gardeners: earwigs are significant predators of aphids. UC IPM notes that earwigs are "important predators of aphids" that "can exert significant biological control under some circumstances." On fruit trees in particular, earwigs provide good control of fruit aphids without damaging the trees or fruit themselves.

If you've been fighting aphid outbreaks in your ornamental beds or on your fruit trees, you may already have a free, working solution living under your mulch. Eliminating earwigs in response to minor foliage nibbling can trade a manageable nuisance for a genuine aphid problem.

Earwigs also prey on cutworms, mites, and small soft-bodied larvae. In a garden with multiple pest pressures, they're working the night shift so you don't have to.

Clean-Up Crew for Decaying Matter

A large portion of what earwigs eat is decomposing organic material. They break down dead leaves, rotting stems, and other plant debris that would otherwise sit and potentially harbor disease. In that role, they're functioning alongside earthworms and pill bugs as basic garden decomposers, cycling nutrients back into the soil without any management needed from you.

Why PNW Gardens Have So Many Earwigs

Earwigs thrive in dark, cool, moist hiding spots and feed most actively at night. The Pacific Northwest coast delivers everything they need: mild year-round temperatures, consistent moisture, abundant organic debris, and long stretches of cool weather that other insects can't tolerate as easily.

On the southern Oregon coast around Langlois and Bandon, earwig activity can persist well into fall and sometimes through mild winters. That population density cuts both ways. In your established ornamental beds and under your fruit trees, high earwig numbers mean suppressed aphid pressure. In your seedling trays and strawberry rows, those same numbers can do real damage during their peak activity from late spring through early fall. PNW gardeners need to understand both sides of this insect rather than treating it as uniformly harmful or harmless.

When Earwigs Actually Cause Problems

Earwig damage is real in certain garden scenarios. Knowing where they're likely to cause trouble keeps you from over-responding in beds where they're net beneficial.

Seedlings and Transplants in Spring

Young seedlings are genuinely vulnerable. Earwigs feed on tender growing shoots and can clip or hollow out seedlings that are still establishing, leaving them missing leaves, stem tissue, or the growing tip entirely. Spring transplant beds and seedling trays are the highest-risk scenarios in any PNW garden. Because earwigs are nocturnal, you may see the damage in the morning without ever seeing the culprit.

The damage can look similar to caterpillar feeding or slug damage: ragged holes in leaves, chewed stem edges, sometimes just a stub where a seedling was. Check for slime trails to rule out slugs. Look for earwigs sheltering in debris or under containers nearby at dawn.

Strawberries, Stone Fruit, and Soft Crops

Earwigs pierce and hollow out ripening strawberries, leaving pitted or excavated fruit that rots quickly. They can damage soft stone fruits, corn silks (which reduces pollination and leads to incomplete ears), and other fruits with accessible soft tissue. These are situations where the "beneficial insect" calculus tips the other direction, and physical controls make sense.

Dahlia Buds and Ornamental Flowers

Earwigs are particularly drawn to dahlia buds and will feed on the petals of zinnias, marigolds, and chrysanthemums. In a cutting garden or dahlia collection, they can reduce blooms to tattered, ragged versions of what they should be. Young leaves are eaten outright; older foliage may be reduced to a skeleton of veins. If your dahlias or ornamental annuals are looking ragged by midsummer, check for earwig activity at the base of stems and in the soil nearby after dark.

The Decision: Tolerate or Trap?

The most useful earwig management skill isn't knowing how to kill them, it's knowing when to bother. This decision framework will serve you better than any spray label.

Beds Where You Should Leave Earwigs Alone

In most established gardens, earwigs belong. Leave them in place if you're seeing them in any of these contexts:

• Mature ornamental beds with a history of aphid pressure
• Fruit trees, where they suppress aphid colonies without harming the fruit
• Lawns, meadow areas, or naturalized plantings
• Compost bins and areas with significant decaying organic matter
• Any bed where aphid populations have historically been a bigger problem than foliar nibbling

In these beds, the earwigs you're seeing are almost certainly doing more good than harm. Let them work.

Situations Where Trapping Makes Sense

Physical trapping is appropriate when earwigs are in or around high-value, vulnerable crops. Consider trapping if earwigs are present near:

• Seedling trays and transplant beds in spring, before plants are established
• Strawberry rows, especially as fruit is sizing up
• Corn during the silk stage
• Dahlia, zinnia, marigold, or chrysanthemum beds where petal damage is appearing
• Stone fruit trees with ripening fruit
• Any area where you've confirmed earwig feeding damage overnight

The goal is selective pressure on specific locations, not garden-wide elimination.

How to Get Rid of Earwigs in the Garden (Without Nuking Your Ecosystem)

All of the most effective earwig controls are physical traps, not chemical sprays. They're also free or nearly free to set up.

Rolled Wet Newspaper Traps (Easiest Method)

This is the simplest earwig control available. Dampen a few sheets of newspaper, roll them into a loose tube, and secure with a rubber band. Set traps near problem areas at dusk, lying horizontally on the soil surface or tucked against plant bases. Earwigs shelter inside overnight. In the morning, shake the contents into a bucket of soapy water. Dispose of the newspaper and replace it with fresh traps.

This method has zero collateral damage. You're catching earwigs specifically, leaving ground beetles, beneficial mites, and other predators untouched.

Tuna Can Oil Traps

Fill a low, wide container (a tuna can works well) with about a quarter inch of fish oil or vegetable oil. Set it flush with or slightly below soil level near the problem crop at dusk. Earwigs are strongly attracted and drown in the oil.

These traps are highly effective but come with an important caveat: oil traps are not selective. Ground beetles and other beneficial nocturnal insects will also fall in. Reserve oil traps for situations where you need concentrated control around high-value targets like strawberry rows or dahlia beds, not as a general broadcast method across your whole garden.

Bamboo Tube and Cardboard Roll Traps

Short sections of bamboo or cardboard toilet paper tubes laid horizontally near affected plants work on the same principle as newspaper rolls. Earwigs use them as daytime shelters. Collect and dump in soapy water each morning. They're reusable if you empty them daily and let them dry.

Diatomaceous Earth: Effective but Use Carefully

Food-grade diatomaceous earth (DE) applied as a dry barrier around specific vulnerable plants will kill earwigs on contact by damaging their exoskeleton. It works. But it's non-selective, and in the PNW's damp climate it loses effectiveness quickly when it gets wet, requiring frequent reapplication. It also harms ground beetles, beneficial mites, and other soil-dwelling predators that you want working in your beds.

Use DE as a targeted, dry-condition barrier around specific plants that need it, not as a general-bed treatment. Re-apply after every significant rain event.

Reducing Hiding Spots and Moisture

This is the highest-leverage long-term strategy: remove the habitat earwigs prefer. Clear ground-level debris, pull dense mulch back from around seedling beds and strawberry rows, and eliminate boards, pots, or dense ground covers that sit directly on moist soil near vulnerable plantings. In the PNW, where humidity means any debris pile becomes a prime daytime refuge within days, site hygiene is a more durable tool than any trap. Earwigs won't disappear from your garden, but they'll redistribute to the areas where they're doing more good than harm.

What About Neem Oil and Other Sprays?

Neem oil does have contact-kill effects on soft-bodied earwig stages, but it has limited residual activity and must hit the insect directly to work. Since earwigs feed at night and hide during the day, timing a spray application to contact them is difficult. You'd need to apply at dusk, precisely when pollinators are winding down and before other beneficial nocturnal insects are most active.

Insecticides are rarely needed for earwig management in home gardens, according to UC IPM. When chemical controls are used, applying at night reduces the risk to bees and other daytime beneficials. But before reaching for any spray, ask whether a rolled newspaper trap set this evening would solve the same problem without any of the tradeoffs. In most situations, it will.

Broad-spectrum insecticides applied to earwig populations in established beds will also reduce the aphid and mite predation those earwigs were providing. The net result is often a more pest-prone garden, not a less pest-prone one.

Three Earwig Myths, Debunked

Myth: Earwigs will crawl into your ears while you sleep. This is ancient folklore rooted in the Old English name and possibly in the vaguely ear-shaped hindwing. There is no documented pattern of earwigs seeking out ear canals. They prefer damp soil and decaying leaves to the warm, dry interior of a sleeping human's head.

Myth: You should always kill earwigs on sight. In most established garden beds, earwigs are net beneficial. They eat aphids, mites, cutworms, and decaying plant matter. UC IPM is clear that they "can exert significant biological control under some circumstances." Blanket elimination trades a mild, occasional pest problem for losing a free, working aphid-control service that operates every night without any effort from you.

Myth: Diatomaceous earth is always the safest earwig solution. DE is non-selective, loses effectiveness when wet, and harms the ground beetles and beneficial mites you want in your soil. In the PNW climate especially, targeted physical traps are lower-collateral and more practical for most garden situations.

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Earwigs in the garden are a genuine two-sided story. In your fruit trees and established ornamental beds, they're working for you. In your spring seedling beds, your strawberry row, and your dahlia collection, they need managing. The difference between a frustrating earwig problem and a free pest-control service is knowing which situation you're actually in, and responding accordingly.

Dragonfly Farm and Nursery is located on the southern Oregon coast in Langlois. Our staff can point you toward the plants and companion planting strategies that work in coastal Zone 9a conditions, stop in during our daily hours or reach us here.