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Novel Ways to Kill Landscape Pests - Article 111
By | August 13, 2008
Think “Out(side) of the Box” to Control Insects
Article 111 Kill Nursery Pests.. Novel Ways - Save money. Save the environment.
Bugs sure can bug us. There are over a million, yes 1,000,000, species of insects with populations estimated way beyond the trillions living on the Earth with us. Sooner or later, most likely sooner, species like mosquitoes and moths, Japanese Beetles, black flies, carpenter ants and carpenter bees are going to be eating us. Really. They’ll be biting on our bodies, our greenery, our food, our clothes and our homes. Controlling insects is a must, but maybe continuously spreading poisonous chemicals should not the only answer.
Thinking “out of the box” is the current way to refer to utilizing uncommon, creative, often never before tried methods to find solutions to problems. It’s as if all the known solutions and the methods to get to those solutions can be considered in the “already box,” and we are challenged to think in the non-standard way about what’s possibly available “outside.”
Always think “out of the box” when you search to design or decorate, to solve any problem or issue, and to fix what’s broken. Don’t only use what you can buy “off the shelf” which works right away as it comes out of the box from which it came…
We wouldn’t be here “on the ‘net” if it wasn’t for thinkers who went “out of the box” to create such things as the vacuum tube in 1907 and the first computer in 1938, then the transistor in 1947, and in the best example of all, two men working separately in 1959 came up with the integrated circuit. IC’s use semiconductor crystals which were totally dismissed as electronically useless at the time of first vacuum tube. How about that?
Here are the best of the extremely uncommon insect control ideas available that are “out of the box.” The list below tells of these FREE or low cost and environmentally friendly ways to control insects that make a pest of themselves:
PUT UP BIRDHOUSES
Place several of them in different sizes in different locations around your property. Get different species in different sizes this way.
Baby birds need to be fed insects. They can’t digest grain, seed, or worms yet. So, even bird species that aren’t insect eaters consume many of the bugs that bug us. An increase in birds will mean a decrease in the insect population. It’s as simple as that. Besides, watching the lunatic antics of our “fine feathered friends” can be downright entertaining.
In the 1930’s, it was a man who made Purple Martin birdhouses in his woodshop that began the now deeply entrenched lie how these birds eat up to 2,000 mosquitoes per day. It was creative advertising. He was thinking “out of the box,” you see. During the great depression the man himself was ravenously hungry and going broke. Other birds that come along with the Purple Martin like eating mosquitoes far more, but none will ever eat anywhere near 2,000 in a day. Bats are the best mosquito munchers.
PUT UP BIRDFEEDERS
By attracting lots of birds to your property, adding to their number, you’ll help subtract from the number of insects you don’t want. By keeping the moms and dads healthy, you’ll help more insect eating baby birds get born. Birdseed in the 50-pound bag really costs very little.
BATS ARE BEST, SO PUT UP A BATBOX
A single bat can eat 1000 or more mosquitoes in a single night. This has been scientifically documented. Here you’re getting a “fun factoid.” Well, here’s another potentially fun factoid -batboxes are very small, like bats are themselves. So their houses are also small. Read that as cheap and quick to build.
Bats avoid all chemical odors because most will get them sick. It’s true. Even a clean piece of wood from the lumber yard which is kiln-dried won’t do for batboxes because of the chemicals like Wollmanizing Salts and zinc chromate which are added in the kiln. Forget about plastics, or plywood, composition wood, masonite and the like because you can’t use glue. The wood pieces you’ll need are all 6 inches and less in size. Just slap together the small boxes with untreated, unfinished raw wood only. It’s a quick, simple pennies-to-build kind of project.connected with screws or nails. Be sure not to hang the box on walls near doorways. There are several websites with plans you’ll find just by typing “batbox” in your favorite search engine.
CREATE A LIZARD HABITAT
If it is alright to do it, bring ‘em home. When you see one, catch it in a can or box with some airholes and release it near a rock wall at your home. No rock wall? Just pile some rocks from your property where you think the lizard will be happy. Do another websearch and find what will make the best spot for a lizard family where you live.
Be sure you take the lizard from a place where you won’t accidentally be breaking a law, like “theft of wildlife from within a park.” Private property is the best. Nockamixon State Park, for example, over 5,000 acres just 13 miles from our Highland Hill Farm home, has a simple rule, “Don’t Take Anything!” But there’s a special time of year, similar to the season for hunting deer, where “lizard hunts, etc.” are encouraged. You could always go to a pet store too.
DON’T FORGET SALAMANDERS & NEWTS
Like lizards, these little reptiles eat bugs too. Newts mostly eat worms and fish eggs, but one little 23-gram, less than an ounce, baby Spotted Salamander eats its weight every three or four days, growing to a 125-gram, 4-ounce adult that is as much as 9-inches long. How does it get there? By eating insects and insect larvae along with worms and other salamanders.
BRING HOME FROGS AND TOADS
If your landscape has a suitable place for these critters, they’ll each eat countless bugs in a day. Best of all, most frogs and toads are cheap to buy if you have to go to a pet store.
BRING HOME A PRAYING MANTIS NEST
If you see a praying mantis nest, bring it home and place in on one of your most valued shrubs. It is a superbly beneficial “beetle removing device.” Again, be aware of the laws governing your source location removing the nest. Would you believe there are about 2,000 species of Praying Mantis, or “Mantids” as biologists call them?
BRING HOME A SKUNK
Catch a skunk. Perhaps there’s one that’s an issue at a friend’s home. Get a “Have-a-Heart” trap, you know, the wire basket boxlike traps that the ASPCA and all the animal shelters use. Place a blanket over the trap. When you get “lucky” and there’s a skunk inside, don’t make any sudden moves, don’t bang the trap, or your luck will end in amidst a cloud of bad odor. Slowly cover the trap with a blanket in a manner that the skunk never sees you, just the blanket. Ever so slowly, bring home the skunk in the back of an open truck, then ever so gently, release it at your property. These smelly old-timers love to eat grubs and cutworms. Having them live near vegetable gardens or expensive trees and shrubs that you just transplanted will truly help the odds for them to thrive. Remember to observe where the skunk settles and place a warning sign there. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” The big stick here is to use for mounting your sign, that is.
DO NOT KILL YOUR SNAKES
These slithering reptiles eat mice, bugs, and beetles. Yes, the gardener’s worst pest around here in Bucks County, PA, the Japanese Beetle, is “comfort food” for snakes. Of the 102 different snakes in all of North America only 20 are poisonous and they’re the biggest ones. Pencil-thin little snakes for your yard and garden are certainly not a problem. The venomous, read that as poisonous, Copperhead and Massasauga Snakes may be as small as two feet long, but they’re also over an inch in diameter. Just don’t get close to these guys, okay? No reaching into hollow logs or under large rocks unless you check first.
NEVER PLACE BEETLE TRAPS NEAR YOUR HOUSE
Do you hate Japanese Beetles? Give them away. Seriously. Never place a beetle trap close to your house on your own property, unless all residents of your area are attempting to control beetles. The reason is, beetle traps work by attracting the beetles. You will get rid of the relative few beetles that are around your house or garden, yet you’ll most likely attract even more beetles to the very spot where you are vulnerable. If you are “trap-minded,” the best idea is to give the traps away. Yes, “It is better to give than to receive.” This old Bible-derived quote is even good for Japanese Beetles which are successfully controlled using the environmentally safe low-impact traps that use food and sex to bring ‘em in. Japanese Beetle traps are usually made as a bag that you hang about 4 to 5 feet off the ground. It is never a good idea to place them near your plants that the Japanese Beetles will eat. So I simply suggest you give the traps to your neighbors at Christmas! Actually, if you want, hang the traps on open-space trees near your property boundary. Thus, the beetles will be directed away from your house and the critical portion of your property.
What we do on our farms is to hang traps on the branches of the trees that overhang our ponds. Then we open up the bottoms of the beetle traps. The trapped little buggers fall into the ponds and our fish eat them up, growing ever bigger. What a way to recycle and not have to empty the traps!
You do know we invite customers to come fish our ponds, right? Just give us a call first.
Some of the affected popular plants and trees favored by Japanese Beetles are:
Annual Aster flower
Astilbe, False Spirea flower
Canna Lilly flower
Cosmos flower
Daylilly flower
Delphinium flower
Hollyhock flower
Iris flower
Marigold flower
v Peony flower
Rose flower
Zinnia flower
Linden tree
Purple plum tree
After you sign up for our mailing list on our website, you will receive more of our unusual gardening and landscape tips along with the many FREE tree and plant offerings from surpluses we have.
We invite to go to our website at http://www.seedlingsrus.com Hope to see you soon, Bill
About the Author
Bill raises trees and plants on his 250 acre farm in Fountainville Pa. This farm is in the heart of Bucks County near Doylestown. He usually has samples on display at his nursery that you are welcome to visit. His web site is http://www.seedlingsrus.com -
There has been many people from the Bucks County Pa area planting the Dawn Redwoods. So I thought I would write this article to help you learn about this great tree.
Okay campers: This tree proves that scientists don’t know when a tree is extinct. Fossil records showed that this tree was extinct for 35 million years, yet this deciduous conifer fooled them all until 1945 when it was rediscovered in a remote valley of Central China in 1945. Dawn Redwood or The Dinosaur Tree, is offically called, “Metasequoia glyptostroboides”. The Dawn Redwood first came to America in 1945 in seeds and has shown to be viable in zones 6 to 8. This tree grows fast and can reach 75 to 100 feet by 25 feet in diameter. It likes full sun to partial shade and is tolerant of moist to dry soils with ph ranges of 3.7 to 7.0. Go ahead and plant it in clay soils, loam or sand. Its bright green, feathery, needle-like foliage will turn brown and will drop quickly in the fall. Thus this plant will be suitable for a great summer screen or a specimen plant. This plant is great for a Hort 101 beginner. It is easy to grow, pest free, adaptable, grows fast, and has soft bright green needles, and of course we have hundreds of 3-4′ plants ready for your landscape.
Dawn Redwood Trees are fairly easy to plant because they are fairly rugged and durable. Yet to plant or transplant them you do need to follow some basic guidelines. We have been growing River Birch Trees for a number of years and offer these suggestions for planting.
All people handling Dawn Redwood Trees need to help with the life support of your plants. Seedlings are like fish out of water and need care which is often overlooked between the time the seedlings are lifted and transplanted. Improper care means higher mortality. Do not try and reinvent the wheel. You must protect seedling from moisture and temperature extremes, as well as physical damage.
Dawn Redwood Trees seedlings are living and should be handled carefully. For a higher survival rate, treat trees carefully and plant them immediately. I like to have a backup plan for planting if the weather turns bad. I will sometimes switch from lining out the seedlings to potting them up if I realize that the soil conditions will not be right for an extended Length of time. If planting must be delayed a few days, keep the plants in a cold, protected place with air circulation between the trees. Keep the Dawn Redwood Trees out of the rain and wind. To check if the trees need water, feel the media at the roots. If it isn’t damp, water the trees and allow the excess water to drain. In cool, damp weather, the biggest threat to these trees is from mold. Try to keep bareroot Dawn Redwood Trees seedlings moist by either restricting water loss with a water vapor barrier or by wetting the roots at regular intervals. While handling or planting try to reduce temperature and air movement around the seedlings. Windy days can dry out seedlings so consider waiting for calmer weather. Once your soil conditions are correct OUR FREE USE PLANTERS will make planting a snap so its will be worth waiting for good planting conditions.
HOW TO PLANT
Ideal planting days are cool and cloudy with little or no wind. If possible, avoid planting on warm, windy days. The soil should be moist not wet. Care in planting is more important than speed. Make sure the roots are never allowed to become dry. Dawn Redwood Trees seedlings should be carried in a waterproof bag or bucket with plenty of moist material packed around the roots to keep them damp. Ideally, bare root boxes should be kept refrigerated or packed in ice or snow. Don’t freeze the trees.
Competition from weeds, grass, brush or other trees is very detrimental to survival and growth of seedlings. Choose areas free from this competition or clear at least a three-foot square bare spot before planting. Dawn Redwood Trees seedlings should not be planted under the crown of existing trees, or closer than 6 feet to existing brush. Avoid areas near walnut trees.
Brush aside loose organic material such as leaves, grass, etc., from the planting spot to expose mineral soil. If organic matter gets into the planting hole, it can decompose and leave air spaces. Roots will dry out when they grow into these spaces. Open up the hole, making sure the hole is deep enough for the roots to be fully extended. If roots are curled or bunched up, the tree will not be able to take up water correctly, will often weaken and die, or may blow down later due to poor root structure.
Take a tree out of your planting bag or bucket only after a hole is ready. When exposed, the fine roots can dry out in as little as 30 seconds. Dawn Redwood Tree shoots and roots lose water to air, roots require more protecting.Unlike leaves ,they do not have stomata (close-able openings on the surface of the leaves) or any waxy coatings to help reduce water loss. If the Dawn Redwood Tree roots feel dry they are probably dead. Now I know you are thinking,”I will place them in a bucket of water and store them there until planting”. This will not work. Submerge plants for no longer that a couple of minutes. Placing them in water cuts them off from oxygen. Remember to remove the container before planting a containerized tree. A helpful hint to all those new gardeners just starting is to remember to always plant green side up. Hold the seedling in place in the hole, making sure the roots are straight, fully extended and that the tree is neither too shallow or too deep in the hole. Fill hole, allowing soil to fall in around the roots. Tamp with hands or with your heel. Don’t crush the roots by jumping up and down around the seedling like there is a snake curled up around the seedling. It is delicate. Fill with more soil, if necessary, and tamp. Tamping is important. If soil is not firmly packed around the roots, there will be air pockets that can dry out the roots, and the seedlings may be weakly anchored. It is far easier to plant the tree strait up then have the tree leaning and have to adjust the tree later. (Addition of fertilizer and plant vitamins at the time of planting is not generally necessary.)
Take your time in planting. Proper spacing will help you grow a more valuable crop. I have tried to get more production from a limited area by over planting and then thinning, but I always have had trouble in harvesting …. digging is slower and poor quality usually results for a portion of the crop. Avoid these tree planting errors:
Tangled roots
Planting too shallow
Planting too deep
Air pockets
Turned up roots (this is called J rooting)
Planting trees that are not tolerant of wet soils in poorly drained areas
Planting over rocks, septic tanks and leach fields, on sand mounds
CARE OF TREES FOLLOWING PLANTING
Check periodically to be sure that brush, grass and other vegetation is kept under control by mowing, mulching, spraying or a combination of these treatments. Always obtain advice from a licensed pest control adviser before using chemicals. You ag extension agency may offer courses in application of chemicals. Monitoring the appearance of your trees will help you to detect signs of insects, diseases or other problems. Appearances also help sell your product. Look for foliage turning yellow, new foliage drooping or other signs of poor health. It is easier to take successful corrective action if the problem is detected early.
Over watering is a common problem in irrigated plantations. You probably won’t need to water more frequently than every 7-10 days. Give your trees a thorough, deep soak and then let the soil dry out before the next watering. This encourages the roots to grow down in search of water. Frequent, shallow watering encourages root growth near the surface and the trees are more dependent on irrigation and are less windfirm.
Animals can be a major cause of damage to young trees. Porcupines, gophers, mice, rabbits, deer and cattle are the most frequent source of damage. In many states you may have to call your game commission and get their recommendations on legal methods to protect your crop. In our state, you can get help from the Pa. Game Commission to kill deer that are a threat to your seedlings or obtain a free fence to keep deer away from your seedlings. Over the years we have lost more trees to mice than any other animal. Put rat baits out on a regular basis. Over the years we have lost more Dawn Redwood Tree seedlings and plants to mice than any other culprit including deer and rabbit ts combined. You an see more articles about the care and planting of Dawn Redwood Trees and nursery stock at our web site:
http://www.seedlingsrus.com
and http://www.highlandhillfarm.com
About the Author
Bill has been raising and selling trees for 25 years near Doylestown Pa. and has two web sites http://www.seedlingsrus.com and http://www.zone5trees.com
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