Insects – The Garden Lady

TheGardenLady just attended an entomology lecture the other day. Insects are interesting and one has to learn how to deal with them both with indoor and outdoor plants. The safest way to get rid of the bad insect pests is to encourage good insects to your place. These beneficial insects do an amazing job keeping your garden pest free. By using pesticides or insecticides, you know that you will be killing off the good insects with the bad. So unless it is the last resort, you want to avoid poisons. You want to know how to encourage good insects by planting plants that will support the beneficial insects at all stages of their lives.

What are some of the good/beneficial insects? We all know about honey bees, butterflies and Lady bugs but here is a more complete list with photos of other beneficial insects.

Continue reading “To Eliminate Bad Insects You Must Attract Good Insects”

A reader of TheGardenLady blog wrote this column about an exciting happening in California on Sat., March 28, 2009.

If we were questioning the calendar, residents in the Bay Area of California knew for certain that Spring had arrived on Saturday, March 28. By late morning, it was well into the 70s and supposedly some thermometers hit low-80s mid-day. The balmy weather, blue skies, and gentle breeze sparked our mass exodus from behind TVs to local parks where all were eager to hit the hiking trails on the East Bay hills. But aside from the hoards of people on the trails, it was for the most part a typical day; while unseasonably warm it was the kind of day that we Northern Californians expect for the next 8 months.

Continue reading “The Western Painted Lady Butterfly”