First, I’m only talking about garden pests. Not roach infestations in restaurants or food processing centers. Just the usual bugs you’ll find in the usual garden. These are the inoffensive creatures whose only crime is being bugs in the wrong place (I’m excluding nesting hornets, and other “clear and present dangers”, too).
What I’m questioning is the need for “zero bug tolerance”. Aphids happen. They don’t last very long, since eventually the predator population builds up and reduces their population. But not to zero.
What about spiders? “Spiders are hard to kill, since they have very tiny feet,” as one pest control person, of the non-sustainable variety, said. But why do we have to kill them in the first place? Most of our spiders are harmless, and it could even be argued that they’re beneficial, since they eat mosquitoes that carry diseases that are much more harmful than the spiders.
If we’re planting things that are killed by insects, we decide that the insects are at fault – not the choice of the plant nor the environment into which its placed. So, we attack the insects, instead of just deciding to change the plant, modify the watering schedule or heaven forbid, just letting them live.
I’ve never seen an ornamental landscape plant killed outright by insects. I’ve seen them defoliated, but they recovered. Some plants have died, and insects have been contributing factors – but usually the plant was in a weakened state for another reason. However, I’ve seen many more plants killed by human error. Overwatering, frost tender plant frozen to black mush, wrong plant for the climate, acid loving plants in alkaline soil…
So why pick on the poor garden insects, spray a bunch of things that are strong enough to kill them around our homes?
Aphids, thrips, harlequin bugs, orb spiders, caterpillars… They all live in a well balanced garden, and some of them can even be kind of fun to look at as they stroll around the plants.
All things considered, most of the “bug” problems are in our heads, not in our gardens.
