I am not an expert by any means but I give advise from my own experiences, about garden pests and how I control them, and ultimately my passsion for gardening.
As you all know that it is true the insects and all other animals are created to keep nature balanced and environment clean and healthy. I do not use any kind of pesticides ☠️to control our garden pests, I leave this job for natural predator🕷 insects which control them very efficiently without harming our plants and spreading toxins in the ground which could cause harm to beneficial insects 🐝 🐞 as well as our plants 🌱.
So let me tell you about the insects I have seen in our garden eliminating the plant pests.
There are many different predator insects but I would like to talk about three very common predators which we see everyday and most of us ignore them, because many people don’t know how important and useful predators they are 😊.
WASPS
This is the most amazing predator insect I have ever found in our garden. This predator preys on all kinds of garden insects such as Aphids, Sawfly Caterpillars and specially Buxus Box Moth tree caterpillars 🐛. I have filmed wasps while eating Buxus caterpillars in our garden.
Here I would like to talk about two types of wasps which are very similar to each other and are very common in all gardens. These wasps are known as COMMON WASPS and GERMAN WASPS.
These wasps eat almost everything like fruits, nectar from flowers, honey dew, various insects and also liking our cat’s food.
However, so far in the videos that I have filmed, I have found only the GERMAN WASPS were eating Buxus caterpillars on the Buxus plants and they have saved two Buxus plants out of four from this type of caterpillar. COMMON WASPS had been seen eating mostly fruits, nectar and honeydews from flowers as yet.
I always encourage them in our garden in order to keep harmful garden insects under control and to keep our plants safe from pests. But, I also keep an eye on these wasps to keep them at a minimum otherwise they build their nests and create their colonies in the garden which could be dangerous for good insects as well as a nuisance to ourselves. So, whenever I see any wasps hovering around walls and wood, I try to spray water on to the surfaces to not let them choose these areas to live. So, they just come for their prey and leave.
They active in our garden in Spring through out Autumn or just before the winter starts.
SPIDERS
This predator is another amazing creature in gardens. As I try to control pests in our garden I found that this species of Spiders are also a natural pests controllers.
This spider is very common in gardens. It is commonly known as ORB WEB SPIDER because of it’s very advanced orb webs to catch flying insects. This spider is in such abundance in our garden that as soon as I enter our back garden it’s webs sticks to my face 🤣. So, now I always keep a stick with me swinging it in the air while entering the garden to break their webs to save myself 🤣.
Naturally, they prey on everything that is trapped in their web. So, in order to keep other beneficial garden insects specially pollinator insects safe, I always try to break their webs on the flower plants where the pollinator insects feed on. Otherwise I leave them alone and let them hunt other predators and harmful insects.
I do not destroy the webs instead I twine them around a tennis racket shaped fly swatter that I made of vines.
I found it’s webbing useful for us, which I use myself to catch flies and mosquitoes inside our house as well as in the garden. It is much more efficient than fly swatter.
I saw one spider wrapping a wasp in it’s web to eat. Another time, a different spider was looking at a wasp which was tangled in it’s web and waiting for the wasp to die so later the spider could have it’s feast.
LADYBIRD LARVAE
L adybird 🐞 Larvae is an amazing predator insect. There are various different species of ladybird larvae and they all feed on Aphids of all types. I normally find them hidden on and under the leaves and stems on plants specially on Roses, Chamomile and Raspberry plants.
Last year 2019 I was very pleased to see lots of Ladybird Larvae in our garden. They were everywhere so I had to be very careful while I was pruning our plants.
I filmed couple of Ladybird Larvae eating green and black Aphids on top of garden recycle bin where I had thrown some plant cuttings. It seemed like they had escaped from the bin with the Aphids and eating them. Since then I try to be careful when throwing away plant cuttings. They eat slowly but do a necessary job.
I haven’t seen any adult 🐞 Ladybirds eating Aphids as yet. But I saw them eating honeydew on the leaves left by Aphids.I see them active in our garden in Spring until the end of Summer.
I tried to find out the species of this particular Larvae from different resources and learnt that this type of Ladybird Larvae is so called HARLIQUIN LADYBIRD LARVAE and also learnt from these resources that this species is very invasive and apart from eating Aphids they feed on other native Ladybird Larvae as well.
It has been stated not to harm any Ladybird Larvae because wether they are a native species or invasive, they are still important predators in our gardens.