Since I have founded Steven Vandora and Associates, I have received more than one phone call from a property owner frantic about pests in the garden. While all of us realize that we share the outdoors – including our gardens – with nature, when that nature bites, stings or ravages our plants its hard to be very understanding. I’ve dealt with pests in the landscapes I have been asked to make over, and I have found a few tips that really do work:
1) Use pesticides and herbicides as a last resort. At Steven Vandora and Associates, I discourage the use of such strong chemicals. I don’t believe that they are very healthy for property owners (or the professionals applying them) and I don’t think they are very nurturing to the landscapes where I work or the environment. I have also found that many chemical products are not as effective as advertisers would have us believe.
2) Choose the right plants. I have found that trying to introduce plants into an environment that is not their natural environment often exposes them to pests and diseases. These plants just do not have the native resistance to pests and problems in their new environment. Choose plants that are meant for your hardiness zone and for your area. If your landscape has many pests, look for plants that are known to be pest-resistant.
3) Plant anti-pest plants around plants that seem more vulnerable. If you find that slugs are eating your favorite plants, surround those plants with a thick bed of prickly gravel or surround them with prickly plants so that they slugs cannot get to them as easily. If deer are eating your favorite plants, surround those plants with flowers that taste bitter or have fuzzy leaves. I have found that deer hate pincushion flower, verbena, coneflower, daffodils, ageratum, ice plant, bleeding heart, clematis, and zinnias. Any one of these plants can help discourage deer from your garden. Often, you may need to do a little research to find out what the pests in your garden hate but it is often time well worth it when you see your garden flourishing.
4) Introduce insects and animals that feast on pests. What is a pest to you may be a delicious buffet to an insect or animal. A single toad, for example, eats between 50 and 100 insects each night. Toads eat flies, grubs, grasshoppers, slugs, cutworms, and many other common garden pests. I adore the bright red and black polka dots of ladybugs and like to introduce them into rose gardens, where the ladybugs will feast on aphids as well as the eggs of many small insects. Parasitic wasps eat cutworms, corn earworms, grubs, and caterpillars. Lacewings are not very attractive insects but they will rid your garden of aphids, tobacco budworm, mealybugs, spider mites, whiteflies, insect eggs, beetle larvae, and leafhoppers. Many garden supply stores and landscaping professionals can help you find these beneficial insects. Through Steven Vandora and Associates. I’ve purchased these insects to help a client deal with a pest problem.