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Gardening and integrated pest management
If you spot damage like this on your rose leaves, congratulate yourself. It means beneficial leafcutter bees find your landscape a good nesting site.
What’s bugging you in the garden? For me, it’s mosquitoes.
With such a rainy June, these pests are out in full force now and I really don’t like it. Fortunately, a few squirts of insect repellent takes care of the problem quickly.
This shouldn’t be the case with insect pests in the garden. Some gardeners I know reach for the insecticide the moment a pest appears, but others are like me and take a wait and see approach.
No matter what’s bugging you in the garden, there are many choices for waging war on insect pests. Even though I rarely resort to chemical warfare, I’m glad to have that in my arsenal. I just don’t automatically use it first.
Companion Planting Improves Gardening Efforts
Bergamot, also called bee balm, is a native perennial that causes bees to linger longer in the garden.
Some things in life make ideal combinations like cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly, and spinach and radishes.
Spinach and radishes not only make a delicious spring salad, they also make perfect partners when grown together in the garden. Radishes attract destructive leafminers to their tasteless leaves and away from the spinach. These botanical buddies are one example of how plants team together to help each other thrive.
Companion planting is the art and science of arranging combinations of two or more plants to benefit one another. Planting certain crops together saves garden space, controls pests and encourages healthy gardens.
Native Americans practiced companion planting for centuries by growing corn, beans and squash together. These vegetables are called the Three Sisters because they complement each other when planted in the same hill. The corn provides tall stalks for the pole beans to climb. The beans help replenish the soil with important nutrients. The large squash leaves serve as a living mulch to maintain soil moisture and choke out weeds.
If you spot damage like this on your rose leaves, congratulate yourself. It means beneficial leafcutter bees find your landscape a good nesting site.
What’s bugging you in the garden? For me, it’s mosquitoes.
Bergamot, also called bee balm, is a native perennial that causes bees to linger longer in the garden.
Some things in life make ideal combinations like cookies and milk, peanut butter and jelly, and spinach and radishes.
Spinach and radishes not only make a delicious spring salad, they also make perfect partners when grown together in the garden. Radishes attract destructive leafminers to their tasteless leaves and away from the spinach. These botanical buddies are one example of how plants team together to help each other thrive.
Companion planting is the art and science of arranging combinations of two or more plants to benefit one another. Planting certain crops together saves garden space, controls pests and encourages healthy gardens.
Native Americans practiced companion planting for centuries by growing corn, beans and squash together. These vegetables are called the Three Sisters because they complement each other when planted in the same hill. The corn provides tall stalks for the pole beans to climb. The beans help replenish the soil with important nutrients. The large squash leaves serve as a living mulch to maintain soil moisture and choke out weeds.
