GUIDE TO GOOD BUGS
Some bugs are a gardener’s best buds
Mary Gardiner is still in touch with her childhood.
Gardiner, an associate professor in the department of entomology at Ohio State University, has written “Good Garden Bugs: Everything You Need to Know About Beneficial Predatory Insects” (Quarry Books). She and insects go way back. “I was definitely one of those kids out there with a net,” she says. “I’ve always been interested in some of those creepy things most people want to step on. Predators, ground beetles, spiders. They’ve always been a fascination of mine since I was young.”
That fascination shows through in “Good Garden Bugs,” which not only identifies the insects a gardener sees, but also talks about things such as biological control, life cycles, eating habits and collecting helpful bugs.
Gardiner’s thoroughness can be seen in her pages on lady beetles. You think ladybug, and you picture a little orange or red beetle. But she lists two dozen of them, with photos, a description of their distinguishing features and a listing of their favourite prey.
She also writes about lesserknown insects, such as the hidden wasps, “tiny parasitoids that forage virtually unnoticed within the garden.” Her pages on spiders — funnel-web weavers, orb weavers, sac spiders, mesh-web weavers, wolf spiders, ground spiders and various other types — are an education.
Gardiner took a break from an ongoing research project — studying and enhancing biodiversity in blighted areas of Cleveland — to talk bugs.
Q: Are insects enjoying a revival? They seem to be getting a lot of good press lately.
A: I have noticed that. We do a lot of outreach programming at Ohio State, and we work with a lot of gardeners and small-scale f armers. A lot of people have become more concerned with conserving biodiversity locally. In the past, people were concerned with biodiversity in large parks and reserves, but now people are appreciating how their own landscapes have biodiversity and want to preserve it.
Q: The book, then, is a perfect fit.
A: What I wanted to do is provide in-depth analysis of different species. People want to know more than (that) they found a ladybug. They want to know what it eats, how to increase abundance if it’s beneficial.
Q: You refer to these insects as natural enemies. Can you explain that?
A: They’re good bugs, ones that provide natural pest control. Natural enemies sometimes come across as bad things, but they’re insects that attack pests in home gardens and other landscapes.
Q: What about buying insects for the garden? You see those praying mantis-egg cases on sale.
A: People buy praying mantises to control common vegetable garden pests — cucumber beetles, aphids, spider mites, relatively small prey. Praying mantises are pretty big. They might eat a cucumber beetle but not a beetle or spider mite. A praying mantis will ... also eat beneficial insects. So if people want to buy them and release them, fine, but they won’t get a big change in pest control. You’d do better to encourage the insects that are there.
Q: In the book, there’s a section on how to catch your own.
A: I thought people would want to see what we do when we go out to catch insects. People think you need special equipment, but it’s pretty basic stuff. I took pictures of some of my students collecting. ... We try to highlight no-kill methods because people obviously don’t want to kill off a small population. What’s surprising is the number of insects you’ll catch. It’s fun for kids and adults.
Q: What about making the most out of whatever’s already there?
A: You can do any number of things to increase the natural enemies. One of the things gardeners don’t realize is how many, beyond bees and butterflies, eat pollen and nectar. Many insects rely on those sugar and protein resources — predatory wasps, ladybugs. If you (make those resources available) they can build up the population. In Chapter 3 there’s a page of seven recommended annual plants and a bunch of different perennials.
Q: The book is great at identifying what gardeners encounter. Should they take time out from, let’s say, weeding, to just look at the bugs in their garden? It’s something people may not think of appreciating.
A: I think everybody was like this when they were eight years old. But we’re busy, and we try to get things done, that’s understandable. If people take time to look at these things, they’ll appreciate it. Or they’ll say, “I’ve been wondering for years what those things are, what they’re eating.” That’s some of the things I wanted to covey in the book.