INSECTS The good and the bad
The pretty orange moth with black polka dots flitting about your cycads is not a garden friend.
It has designs on the new, tender fronds of this prized indigenous plant.
It is called Zeronopsis leopardina or the leopard moth and lays its eggs on the leaves.
When they hatch into caterpillars they swarm up and devour the young growth, leaving just the stalks intact.
They can destroy the entire plant in a couple of days.
Most gardens are in the throes of good health now, attracting all kinds of destructive pests.
Even the fat round seed pods of my oriental poppy which have dropped their petals have worms sneaking up wanting to damage them.
The window box at the front door planted with pelargoniums about to flower has been targeted too.
On close inspection, I found that there were perfect holes just bigger than a pinprick pierced into their buds.
Apparently the eggs are laid by small, white moths. Soon worms will stick themselves out of the hole poised to destroy the rest of the plant.
Pyrethrum spray is recommended. But I simply cut off the affected bits rather than try to save them.
Just the other day I spotted that a new bud on the day lilies which were given to me in August had small gold beetles feeding on their soft, pale flesh.
To save the rest of the buds on the stem, I quickly dealt with the beetles.
Light rain is welcome, but the dampness it creates allows yellow slugs an ease of movement around the garden.
Remove them as soon as you see them. Drop them into a saucer of salt, which causes them to shrivel up and die. This was a lesson given by our science lecturer years ago.
I always keep an eye on my roses, so any aphids settling themselves in for a feed are quickly removed by scraping them off with a forefinger and thumb before they can harm the buds and young growth.
A garden friend and neighbour kindly gave me a tub of my first amaryllis.
Excitedly anticipating the colour of the blooms to be revealed, I watched as the first bud appeared.
That was a week ago. In the meantime the bud has been eaten away. It must have happened at night as there was no evidence of a pest in sight.
I have shared these very real examples of pests in my garden so you might identify the problems too.
We enjoy the regular visits of many bird species, butterflies, ladybirds and bees to our garden.
My fear is that I will harm these friendly visitors should I take extreme action with insecticide poisons from the nursery shelf.
The poisons cannot discriminate between good and bad insects. Sadly all succumb to its affects.
Your tactic should be to know your enemy. That is, identify which type of pest is causing the destruction.
There are chewing insects that eat holes in leaves and petals, chew through buds and stems. Some, if left to their own devices, completely defoliate the plants.
These include caterpillars (the larvae of butterflies and moths) and different kinds of beetles.
Sucking insects suck the sap out of a plant. These are aphids, fruit flies, mealybugs, red spider mites, various kinds of scale, thrips, white flies and larger bugs such as shield bugs (they have a triangular shield on their backs).
Often the pests are so small the problem is not identified until it is too late. The leaves will already have begun yellowing or become distorted, there is poor growth and the leaves begin to wilt.
Leaf eaters include caterpillars, cutworms, grasshoppers, snails, slugs, beetles and locusts.
Flies lay their eggs on fruit and flower buds. As the maggots develop they feed on their hosts causing them to rot, wither or become deformed.
Chemical pesticides are available to cope with every pest intruder.
They are toxic and, apart from adding poisons to the environment, they kill indiscriminately — the good (ladybirds) and bad insects (aphids).
The best strategy is to be diligent and act quickly.
Go on a regular pest patrol. Perhaps walk around the garden first thing in the morning with your cup of tea or coffee. Or in the evening when your work day is done.
Remove beetles and shield bugs as you spot them.
Here are some fairly harmless options for controlling them:
Neem oil or powder is fairly harmless to beneficial insects. It is effective against shield bugs and many beetles which grow and breed rapidly. The product repels insects and is a natural steroid which causes the bugs to lose their appetite and stop laying eggs, which halts the breeding cycle. Use it in the late afternoon.
Borax is effective in getting rid of ants. Mix borax with icing sugar and place it close to the ants’ nest.
Pyrethrum is the ingredient in Ludwig’s Insect Spray. It is made from the white daisies of Tanacetum cinerariifolium and is good for combating ants, beetles, caterpillars and all soft-bodied insects by paralysing them instantly. Use it after sunset to avoid harming beneficial insects. Pyrethrum also repels aphids, bed bugs, leaf hoppers and spider mites.
An effective spray against all soft-bodied insects including aphids, whitefly, mites and small beetles may be made by blending together: 1 head of garlic that has been peeled, 4 onions, and 1 tablespoon of hot chillies, 2 tablespoons of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of dishwashing liquid.
Leave it covered for 24 hours then strain it, place the mix in a bottle with a lid and refrigerate it. Mix 1 tablespoon of this prepared oil in 1 litre of water. Spray it directly on both sides of the leaves.
A friendly deterrent for snails is creating a barrier using steel wool (the kind you employ to clean off stubborn stains for pots and pans). Tug out and tease the ends of the steel wool to form long sausage shapes.
Arrange them around the area you would like to protect. Pin them in place. The effect is the same as using rolls of barbed wire to keep intruders out, only on a snail-size scale.
Beetles, (flower beetles, CMR beetles, chafer beetles, Astylus beetle) may be handpicked off the plant and dropped into a container containing equal measures of water and paraffin.
Use Margaret Roberts Biological Caterpillar Insecticide to combat lily borer (Amaryllis worm). Scrape off eggs and destroy them while small, as well as the larvae.
Spray the cycad affected by the orange leopard moths and infested with caterpillars with Carbaryl or remove them by hand.
More will hatch, so you need to follow up, deterring them with more spraying as they continue to appear. The spray must be in contact with the caterpillars to be effective.
• In the Garden is written by feature writer, garden enthusiast and former teacher Julia Smith, who has returned home to live in Chintsa East. The column looks to inform both novice and accomplished gardeners on how to make the most of their green patches.