Hello gardening friends.
Would you like a little free help in the garden this year to manage insects out there?
You know, it's yours, all you've got to do is plant a few plants, bring in a few birds.
You know, when you use the chemicals out in the yard
there's a lot of negative side effects from doing that.
We're polluting our gardens, for starters.
The spray kills all of the beneficial insects,
and then, over time, insect resistance comes about
as a result of just this constant spraying of them.
And then your family and your pets are exposed.
These are big problems.
And a few insects in the yard, that's not really a problem.
But you can bring in the beneficials,
and the beneficials will do the job for you,
all you need is a few plants out there.
And this is one of the good ones, the coriander,
and so will parsley and fennel.
All of these will bloom and when they do,
they bring in a lot of beneficial insects,
more than any other plant when they're in their bloom cycle.
The insects land on here; the ladybugs will do that,
and they like to get on the daisies, too.
The green lacewing, that's another beneficial.
Green lacewing is one of the best beneficial insects.
Now this is the one you see around a light in the summertime,
flying around with those nice lacy wings and those pretty golden eyes.
This is a beautiful little insect to have out there.
You know, in order to attract them to the garden,
you might find that the daisies would be the very best one for them.
There's other insects, like hoverflies.
If you see a fly out there, that's another very, very good insect to have in the garden.
Lizards and frogs--can't beat that, either.
And you want all these critters out there.
Some of the ways of attracting them to the garden
would be the use of these plants--
they eat pollen when they're not eating insects,
especially the adults.
The juvenile stage will eat a lot of aphids,
soft-bodied insects, worms out there for you,
and as they mature, then they begin to eat pollen off of the different plants.
And so the ladybug will crawl around on the pollen on one of these flowers right here
--any of these daisies--the natives are probably the best choice for you,
but any of these will do very well,
and some of them are just blooming all summer long.
Some of these are early in the year, and others will last--
this little blackfoot daisy is a very, very good one to have out there,
and then the four nerve daisy, one of the ones you see on the side of the road,
another great one; they just crawl around on the pollen that's on these things.
Like I said, flies out there, that's not a bad thing.
And then you really want those lizards
and the way to attract all of the beneficial insects to the garden,
and birds, too--the mockingbird is on of the great beneficial birds to have in the garden,
they're insect eaters.
So what we need to bring them in are flowers that are open-face.
All of the daisy-like flowers are perfect for bringing them in.
Bird houses and bird feeders--these are great sources of having the birds come into the
yard, stay in the yard.
Trees and shrubs for cover, those are some other things
that these birds will be using out there.
And so between these daisies right here blooming year-round
and these that come in early in the springtime,
you will automatically attract the beneficials to the garden;
you don't have to go out and buy them; that's not necessary.
If there's been a lot of spraying and the neighbors are spraying,
maybe that would be okay, but you really don't need it.
And to have habitat, you've got a little water out here,
down low where the beneficials can get on them.
I like to put a rock in the middle so the beneficials have a place to land
so that they will be able to get a little bit of this water.
Water is a critical part of habitat
for the lizards, for the frogs, and also for the frogs,
maybe you've broken a pot at some time
and what you'll do is you'll bury this into the soil like that,
and the frogs will use it as a little house out there.
So these broken pots really aren't going to waste at all.
So in order to have beneficial insects to manage the insects in the yard,
you have to be tolerant of a little bit of worm out there,
a few of the aphids because they do need something to eat,
but when these other harmful insects--so-called harmful insects--
are gone, then they'll light on these flowers
and they'll eat pollen.
If you have a little water, they're going to stay out there.
Attracting the birds is very important.
These are the things that make the backyard habitat
a perfect place to garden in without insect problems out there.
It's real easy to do.
And so collect these things--zinneas for the summertime,
these are great ones, and also the sunflower.
The sunflower is a very good late-summer and mid-summer bloomer,
and they're nice and large, and so planting sunflowers would be another part of this whole
process.
So, beneficials are going to be your best ally out in the garden,
so keep them out there, and you'll see that your garden is
much more resistant to any of the problems,
and a much more beautiful place.