I know I wrote last week that I would showcase fruit bearing plants this week, but a certain garden visitor convinced me to change my topic...and this week's topic is: Garden Guests.
Among the many joys and pains of gardening are garden visitors--some welcome and some unwanted. Every gardener has had to deal with pests of various sizes and species, just as every flower gardener has, if not marveled at, appreciated the wide variety of critters gardens attract--good or bad.
Among our most unwelcome guests, are these little pests:
A lone Japanese Beetle eating a grape leaf.
This bug is one of thousands that infest our grapes and other vines, such as morning glories, and even with chemicals it is impossible to eradicate them all together.
The japanese beetle was introducd to the US sometime slightly before 1912--
possibly in a shipment of iris bulbs from Japan. Originally an invasive species in the Northeast, these bugs have spread as far as Minnesota and the Dakota, mostly in the northern part of the United States.
Many sites offer suggestions to at least minimize the impact of these pests on your garden plants--in our case the grapes we have growing on our fence. The most immediate remedy involves chemical sprays or powders--something, until recently, I was very resistant to using, as we try to manage our gardens as organically as possible.
However, there are biological ways to combat these buggers--the most effective is by introducing a bacteria to your soil called Milky Spore. I purchased milky spore last year, but have not yet applied it as it requires some serious precautionary measures (such as a respirator) during application, and the dog would not be able to use the backyard until it was washed into the soil.
