Wildlife and Gardens - Part 2
If your garden is a healthy eco-system, a balance will be achieved. I don't buy ladybugs or praying mantis - my garden has a self sustaining population. I can only think of two insects that give me a problem; Blister Beetles and boxwood leaf miners. And this isn't all the time or every year. Once I had a build up of hemlock woolly algids, but one treatment with horticultural oil took care of them and they haven't been back. Blister beetles swarm every so often and feast on my Anemones. I put on a pair of gloves and have a squashing party - do the same for the few Japanese Beetles I find. If you can't stand the thought of squashing bugs (gives me a certain sadistic satisfaction), you can drop them into a can of soapy water.
I use Safer's Insecticidal Soap on the boxwood leaf miners when the adults swarm in May and that usually keeps them under control. Interestingly, where they have infested boxwood leaves, I've seen Black Capped Chickadees feeding on them in winter. Periodically, the population of Gypsy Moths builds up and my oaks suffer. Most of them are too large to spray with Bacillus thuringiensis, the same B.t used to take care of cabbage loopers on vegetable crops, but when it gets really bad, I'll spray what I can reach.
The trick is spraying at the right time, while the caterpillars are actively feeding. My county has an aerial spray program using some lethal chemical that does little good against the Gypsy Moths and is, I'm certain, why I haven't seen a Luna Moth in years. The last real infestation, however, was responsible for bringing the illusive Yellow-billed cuckoo to my garden for a brief sojourn.
Insects are important food items for most wildlife and need to be present in your garden. Slugs, as much as I loathe them, are relished by critters like toads and box turtles. Spiders are your friends.
The foregoing paragraph is not likely to be good news to the squeamish or tidy-minded among you. It means you're going to have some damage to the plants in your garden; they will not be unblemished. The trade off is being able to enjoy observing the daily lives of the little critters that share our world.
Those of us who's gardens are shaded by mature trees are ahead of the
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