Greenhouse-grown bedding plants represent a large, lucrative market. Because of their high dollar value, the high demand for aesthetic quality, and the relatively short propagation time before marketing, a preventative pest strategy that relies on pesticides has predominated in the United States. This mindset, coupled with the generally low cost of pesticides, has contributed to the limited use of biological control. However, increasing concerns about pesticide resistance, and uncertainty about the future availability of pesticide products because of more stringent federal regulations, have provided new possibilities for alternative pest management, including biological control. Furthermore, a shift from preventative control to more scouting-based pest management to mitigate pesticide resistance has created an opportunity for biological control to be economically more competitive with chemical control because natural enemy costs are reduced substantially when they are applied in response to scouting versus preventatively. Treatment frequency and thus costs can be further reduced if action threshold are employed. However, for this kind of program to work will require research and educational efforts to (1) determine which crops are suitable for scouting based IPM, (2) develop biological control-based action thresholds for key pests along with efficient, convenient pest sampling methods, (3) establish the most convenient and efficient ways of using biological control, and (4) demonstrate and educate growers about the economic and technical feasibility of using biological control. We will illustrate each of these steps using as an example our biological control program for twospotted mites and western flower thrips on ivy geranium and impatiens.