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| Monarch Caterpillar chawing on my dill that is planted for such an occasion, I love finding these guys in my garden! |
There are good critters in the garden and bad critters. Hopefully after reading this article you will be able to attract more beneficial critters to your garden and provide some of them with housing to make for a long comfy and reciprocal growing season in your garden. What kind of critters do you want to attract to your garden? That is a personal question. There are as many different answers as there are critters. Some common beneficial critters are: ladybugs, toads, lacewings, butterflies, bees, birds, bats, praying mantis and even snakes.
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| Before the butterfly comes the caterpillar |
Ladybugs are beneficial for a variety of reasons: cute factor, they munch on a multitude of nasty critters that are destructive. Toads like to eat large quantities of bugs and prefer a wet dark area in which to spend their time, providing them with a toad house and a saucer of water nearby will greatly increase your chances of attracting a resident toad. If you are going to build habitats for your toad ensure to make a wide enough opening for the toad to gain entrance – they are not the slim Jim of the garden world. Lacewings are not only pretty to look at but hugely beneficial to your garden. They are voracious predators and begin their garden maintenance as soon as they hatch usually on a leaf with aphids or some other kind of infestation. Butterflies are nearly everyone’s favourite garden visitor. They are not only attractive but quite busy with fluttering about eating nectar and gathering minerals. If you would like to create a feeder for the butterfly, folks you just need some sand and water – think the shore of a lake. The sand needs to be wet enough to be hard, but not soggy the butterflies will sit on the sand and drink from the sand with their proboscis inserting it like a straw. Bees are nature’s working class and they flit in and out of the garden all day. They gather pollen on their legs and return to the hives at night intoxicated on their collection sometimes even flying dizzyingly. Bees are struggling worldwide due to the overuse of chemicals and could use a helping hand to bounce back and without bees we would have a very different food crop. Birds are as numerous as they are humorous. The many different personalities that come along are entertaining and downright comical at times. Birds will keep your garden free from a variety of critters and provide you with multiple opportunities to chuckle with their antics. Bats, now don’t shiver. Bats are adept at eating flying bugs that you do not want stuck, for instance, in your hair! They will dive about in your yard from dusk to nearly dawn and keep your flying insect population down by eating moths, beetles, and mayflies. Bats will normally eat over 50-100% of their body weight in one summer night. Praying mantises are an exclusive predator that will normally eat insects but have been known to eat small rodents, birds and fish! They are available at some garden centres in the spring as egg casings because when it comes to pest control this is the Cadillac of predators! Snakes are not a welcomed guest by many – but please wait before you grab the spade and go after them. They do many wonderful things for the environment and your garden well except maybe for your toad. They will feed on nearly anything that they can in the garden as they are very opportunistic feeders. They will eat worms, snails, slugs, leeches, and rodents of many sizes. They are immune to the toxicity of the common toad. Critters are a vital component to our healthy gardens and ones that we really ought to put out a welcome mat and invite to settle in for a long warm sunny summer stay.
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| Tobacco or tomatoe worm, destroy if you find them. |
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| Grasshopper that fed on my ornamental corn, he sang so Ieft him be, but if he returns this year, I think his days will be numbered. Lady of the Oak |
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