7 minute read

A Little Garden Talk About the Birds and the Bees

BY PAMILLA S. TOLEN

Spring is almost here, so it’s finally time when everyone can look forward to those times outdoors. Whether it’s entertaining in backyards, or sitting on porches or decks, soon everyone can enjoy the wonderful weather and scenery that warm weather brings. Better still, as green leaves begin to peak out from their tree branches, it’s easy to envision working on the yard once again. Planting beautiful perennials can brighten surroundings and lift our spirits, while vegetable and herb gardens provide a fresh taste to the dinner table.

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Unfortunately, the warm weather also brings the most hated nemesis to outdoor enjoyment — bugs! Whether it’s flies, aphids or mosquitoes, bugs eat away at everyone’s patience by eating plants and vegetables or biting people. This is the time to decide on a plan to curtail these pesky pests — before getting started on planting. Carefully choosing plants can be very helpful in achieving the desired goals. However, when choosing plants that enhance any landscape, several things need to be considered with those choices. Allergies and available sunlight are two important things that should be well-planned.

A bird-friendly garden is one that provides the resources that birds need to thrive — and that includes bugs!

—Audubon Society

For example, marigolds are beautiful and add a variety of color to any yard, in addition to providing a fantastic, natural insect repellant. Although very beautiful, marigolds can play havoc with those who have allergies. Since they have a distinctive smell that repels mosquitoes and other garden pests, their strong aroma can also be overpowering when grown in large quantities. Also, they need significant sunlight to thrive.

Marigolds are also great in gardens to keep away the tomato worms, squash bugs and other aphids that feed on the leaves of garden vegetable plants. Whenever planning a garden, a few of them should be dispersed amongst the plants, especially close to tomatoes, squash and melons.

Another plant that is both popular and lush with color is lavender, whose fragrance is soothing to smell. Lavender produces a mass of flowers from late spring to mid-summer and is a good plant for tough growing conditions, including heat and humidity, and even drought. Like marigolds, it needs full sun.

Lavender can also be dried and hung in closets in order to repel moths and silverfish that like to feed on clothing. In an outside environment, lavender is not only beautiful and fragrant, but also repels insects. While it is very pleasant to human senses, most bugs just don’t like it. The only exception is bees. Although it repels most insects, it attracts bees. They love it! According to the Medical News Today newsletter, lavender comes from Africa and the Mediterranean mountains. It is grown for the essential oils that are extracted and used in a variety of methods such as diffusers, sprays, ointments, etc. The medicinal benefits that have been demonstrated include treatments for anxiety, fungal infections, hair loss and wounds. So yes, lavender can potentially help people sleep better.

In the spring, a very common pest that is common to this area are ants. They come nonstop, invading every area of our homes, including the kitchen and pantry wherever food can be found. It’s often a never-ending battle to find the source from where they originate. A plant that may help

deal with this aggravation is mint. Not only is mint beautiful, but ants hate it. Setting a few pots of mint around doorways will help to eliminate this problem.

A great choice for your porch or deck is lemongrass, which originated in India and tropical Asia. It’s fast growing and fragrant and can be planted as a border around decks and porches, or in containers that sit on the floor. Lemongrass tolerates heat or light shade well, but not frost. It takes about 100 days for the grass to grow after planting. It should be planted in early spring after any frost has passed. To get a jumpstart on planting, lemongrass can be grown it in containers and placed in a dark place during the winter for planting outside in early spring. This plant likes hot weather but also needs well-drained soil to thrive. It’s beautiful when planted among ornamental grasses. The reason lemongrass is so popular is that it contains citronella, which is a common ingredient in the products we buy to repel mosquitos. Lemongrass can grow up to 4 feet tall and creates a natural buffer against those mosquitos that seem to want to eat everyone alive. Another flowering plant that produces splashes of different colors is the petunia. These annuals are beautiful funnel-shaped flowers that give off a perfumed licorice scent which also repels insects. While the fragrance of the petunia is very pleasant to most people, insect pests and aphids don’t like it and stay away. Because they are annuals, they will come back every year without replanting.

The best plan for your garden is to plant a diversity of native plants. Every plant doesn’t need to have built-in insect repellent. Native plants attract other insect predators such as dragonflies, praying mantises and ladybugs. The idea should be to prepare a garden that maintains a healthy balance.

It’s impossible to complete a perfectly designed, ecological garden without including the bees.

Whenever planting a garden, whether it contains green or flowering plants or vegetables and herbs, a good place to begin is by designing a garden that maintains a healthy ecological balance. While a personal goal maybe to keep those pesky insects as far away from personal outdoor enjoyment as possible, it is important to also consider the birds, bees and butterflies which make that same environment their home.

Birds are another great resource to control plant-eating insects. According to the Audubon Society, “A birdfriendly garden is one that provides the resources that birds need to thrive — and that includes bugs! Insects are in important element of many birds’ diets and are particularly critical for baby birds: 96% of land birds feed insects to their chicks.”

When considering modern-day plant treatment remedies, something to be concerned about is called “Neonicotinoids.” They fall into a class of insecticides that are chemically related to nicotine, which targets certain receptors in the nervous system. According to the Audubon Society, they were approved in the 1990’s. They became popular because they were water soluble and plants could easily absorb the repellent when it was mixed with water. The plants retained the pesticide in its tissues for a length of time, therefore warding off offending insects.

It is important to note that several studies show that these pesticides are harmful to birds, along with other insect pollinators, such as bees. Due to the popularity of these “neonics”, many nurseries began using them in order to reduce damage to plants before they are sold. If you are interested in pursuing more information available about the effects of these products on bees and other insect pollinators, www.Xerces.org provides an excellent online resource. According to regenertive.com, eleven of the most common species of insect eating birds are found in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. Bluebirds eat snails, ants and sow bugs. Chickadees eat insects, such as aphids, caterpillars, leafhoppers, moth and beetles. Nuthatches’ entire diet

consists of insects, especially for their chicks. Since they don’t migrate, they also provide pest control during winter months. Nighthawks specialize in consuming flying insects, such as flying ants, grasshoppers, leaf chafers and moths. Swallows hunt winged insects, including ants, moths, grasshoppers and flies. Yellow Warblers eat mainly caterpillars. Woodpeckers consume moth larvae, wood-boring beetles, ants, caterpillars and millipedes. Wrens eat every insect from boll weevils and stinkbugs to caterpillars and millipedes. Cardinals, the North Carolina state bird, prefer different types of beetles, along with grasshoppers and caterpillars. Finches eat beetles as well as aphids and are particularly useful in controlling the variety of beetles that enjoy backyard gardens. Finally, Sparrows consume large quantities of ants, beetles and grasshoppers.

It’s impossible to complete a perfectly designed, ecological garden without including the bees. Bees and butterflies are necessary to pollinate those colorful flowers and delicious herbs and vegetables. In order to attract bees and butterflies to your garden you also need to plant some nectar producing flowers. Some of these plants that can be found in the Cabarrus area include snapdragons; milkweed; aster; bougainvillea; Echinacea; thistle; sunflower; Hibiscus; morning glory; lantana; Oleander and mint. This is just a short list, but a more extensive list of flowers can be obtained on lotusland.org.

Having established a goal to achieve a more ecologically based garden, it’s time to choose the specific flowers and plants to keep personal spaces insect-free, while attracting and sustaining a variety of birds, bees and butterflies that add to a garden’s beauty. With proper planning, just about anyone can create a landscape that is eye-catching, relaxing and accommodating to outdoor living.

With that goal in mind have a wonderful spring and summer, and happy planting!

Native plants attract insect predators such as ladybugs.

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