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| Lady Beetles have the best reputation, but the tiny beneficials are also there to wipe out pests - unless pesticides wipe them out. |
One member debated my rejection of man-made chemicals in the garden, because some crops are very fragile when grown together - attracting a bounty of diseases or pests.
But a concentration of one plant can also provide an army of pest destroyers. That gave me a chance to use weal or woe in the headline.
I only work with a small property, but I have seen what an invasion of aphids can do to roses, even worse - Japanese beetles. I wonder if they are any worse than the Asian cover group - The Japanese Beatles.
One answer to an invasion of pests is to have plenty of beneficial insects ready to combat them. Those host plants are generally the unglamorous ones:
- Sunflowers.
- Fever Few.
- Daisies.
- Mints.
- Tiny-flowered plants, like Clethra (Summersweet).
- Joe Pye.
- Members of the carrot family, like Queen Ann's Lace.
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| Do not read this book! You will catch Walliseritis, the urge to discover beneficial bugs in the garden and their host plants. Symptoms - obsession with beneficial bug plants, talking to people about tiny wasps, reading The Snoring Bird and loving every page. |
If we start or end with Creation - every plant and bug has a purpose, perhaps several roles besides the main one. I thought of headlining this post - Jessica Walliser Ruined My Life! - because she moved my concentration from roses to bugs, not that the roses have suffered one bit.
Beneficial bugs normally do their work after hatching, though the Lady Beetles are also adult pest destroys. So some plants make great nurseries for beneficial insects, providing pests to eat while growing into beneficial moms and pops. But other plants serve the adults, providing nectar and pollen for the mature insects. Nothing-but-roses would be heaven for aphids, but a concentration of host plants nearby would mean pests serving as food and games for a permanent adult population of beneficial insects and spiders.
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| John Paul II white rose blooms are fragrant, and aphids sucked them dead. Spiders and beneficial bugs gave JPs like this. |
Note well - when I began cutting perfect examples of John Paul II, the white rose most devoured by aphids, I found a tough spider web at the base of each rose stem. Accident - or on purpose? I refuse to join the screaming hordes who hate spiders. They serve us indoors and out.
Note also - when I cut flowers for friends or the altar - tiny Flower Flies and Ichneumon wasps hover around the blooms in the vase, as if saying goodbye to their hatcheries. I may even go inside with a few flying bugs in my hair. extending my appeal as Dr. Doolittle. Anyone can attract four-footed animals. What about six and eight feet? I have one minor sting from decades of gardening.
Concentrations for Butterflies and Hummingbirds
City planners put entire shopping districts together, and we can imitate them. The lone scarlet Bee Balm will attract a hummer, but a group of them will provide a place for them to shop for nectar and insects.
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| Ruby Spice is the Summersweet shrub (Clethra) that I grow. Why do fragrant plants attract so many butterflies and beneficial insects? |
I finally put a Butterfly Garden together and made Summersweet (the Cinnabon shrub) the center attraction. Empty places left by the Wild Ginger I moved looked like great planting areas for Summersweet on emergency sale - 2/3rds off! The two mature ones are along the driveway, for people coming to see the roses. All I had to do was move them from obscurity in the backyard to celebrity in the front. And now the rain is gently falling on the new and old plants, fertilizing them at the same time - Who thought of that?
The Butterfly Garden is in the sunniest spot and features Milkweed, Joe Pye Weed, Tansy, Mint, and Knitbone (Comfrey). At the front is the trio of new Summersweets, aka Cinnabon, aka Cinnamon Fry shrub. Observe gardeners - scented plants get a lot of attention from the best and most useful insects - mints, carrot family, and Summersweet. So I am seeing more butterflies daily, even though the garden is headed toward its winter sleep.
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| Joe Pye has a vanilla fragrance in the bloom, but the plant has a medicinal aroma besides. |
If Plants and Insects Have a Purpose...
Facebook has a lot of problems, but it lets us be in touch with a wide variety of families. It is incontestable that plants and animals prosper because of their created purpose and abilities. How much more is that true of people, the pinnacle of Creation?
We see many kinds of suffering, which are turned into a purpose. It can be grief that is discussed to help heal others wounded by loss. Or the suffering can be extraordinary pain and impossible medical conditions that become triumphs, because they are used to show how to live with such difficulties.
We see church bodies run into the ground by Worldly Wise Men (Pilgrim's Progress). But we also find ordinary pastors and congregations that flourish through the Gospel Word rather than the Drucker Goal.
Jonah informs us - adversity is the whale that vomited us on the shores of Sugar Creek, NW Arkansas, . All the blessings imagined and many more have been realized, from being near grandchildren to having an ideal setting for writing and teaching. I used to say, "There are only a few Lutherans in each state that seem to care about Luther's doctrine. If only we could get them together." And now the Net has united us through video services and emails.
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| Chaste Tree oil sells for $40. Bees love the blooms. The shrub smells like something parents insist is good for us. |
