NATURAL PREDATORS

Using nature to fight garden pests in Italy Often a garden full of insects and brimming with natural life can seem somehow out of control and, to some, even full of potential garden pests. However, a garden that is able to find a harmony with its surrounding landscape is more likely to find a positive balance between garden pests and their natural garden predators. There are many garden pests from aphids (greenfly) to caterpillars and from beetle to worm, however, like anything else in nature, each one often has its own natural predator! In nature there are many battles taking place simultaneously, there are ants protecting, moving and milking aphids for a payment of the sugary honey-dew, produced from the aphids abdomen. Then there are many fly and beetle larvae feeding upon aphids the aphids, caterpillars and other pests. By far the most famous of these hunters is the ladybird but there are many others, such as the simple hoverfly, whose larva is also a voracious hunter of aphids Then there are the rarer, more complex natural predators, such as the lacewing and its larvae, who both feast on aphids. The adult lacewing is even able to sense the sonar of passing bats, such is its precision as a hunter There are many mechanisms operating in nature and its aim is always to find a balance between hunter and hunted and only when this balance is achieved in a garden can we hope to achieve a natural, balanced beauty. Many of these hunters can now be bought, even online, and buying them clearly makes more sense than simply spraying away all these wonderful natural mechanisms with powerful pesticides indiscriminately! Contact me HERE for more advice on gardening or inexpensive Italian garden design.