The Wildlife-friendly Garden. Michael Chinery
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Название: The Wildlife-friendly Garden

Автор: Michael Chinery

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Природа и животные

Серия:

isbn: 9780007588299

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ Nevertheless, it is still possible to recognize some positively useful creatures – friends – which should be welcomed into the garden and some without which our gardens would be better off. These are the pests that eat our crops and spread diseases and they must be discouraged if not actually destroyed.

       FRIEND OR FOE?

      This simple, although not infallible, rule of thumb may help you to decide which are the goodies and which are the not-so-good. Fast-moving garden creatures are generally predators and on your side, whereas slow-moving creatures tend to be herbivores and are thus often harmful in the garden.

       Our friends

      images Ground beetles These long-legged, fast-moving insects are most likely to be found lurking under logs and stones. They hunt by night, destroying slugs and many harmful caterpillars.

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       Michael Chinery

      Long, sensitive antennae enable the ground beetle to track down its prey at night.

      images Lacewings In spite of their fragile appearance, the lacewings are voracious carnivores, destroying hundreds or even thousands of greenfly during their lives.

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       Michael Chinery

      Lacewings often come to lighted windows at night; introduce them to your roses or other plants where they can eat the troublesome aphids.

      images Hedgehogs Among our most popular garden inhabitants, hedgehogs do good service by getting rid of slugs and snails, although they do destroy the useful earthworms as well.

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       Michael Chinery

      A good friend in the garden, this hedgehog is busily polishing off a snail.

      images Ladybirds These attractive little beetles eat huge numbers of greenfly and other harmful aphids and are therefore among the gardener’s best friends.

      images Centipedes These fast-moving carnivores eat a wide range of other creatures, including slugs, insect grubs and other centipedes, which they kill with powerful venom. On balance, they do more good than harm, and they are certainly not dangerous to us.

       Our foes

      images Lily beetles These colourful beetles destroy the leaves and seed capsules of all kinds of lilies. What look like slimy black droppings on the plants are actually the lily beetle grubs which are covered with their own excrement.

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       Michael Chinery

      Beautiful, but also beastly, the lily beetle must go if you value your lilies.

      images Aphids These tiny bugs occur in huge numbers and they deform many plants by sucking out the sap. They also spread numerous viruses responsible for diseases such as potato leaf roll and various mosaics. There are hundreds of species.

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       Michael Chinery

      This apple shoot has been deformed by the piercing beaks of hundreds of sap-sucking aphids.

      images Leatherjackets These rather featureless grey creatures are the grubs of crane-flies or daddy-long-legs. They live in the soil, especially under lawns and flower beds, and destroy the roots.

      images Cabbage white caterpillars The black and yellow caterpillars are the larvae of the large white butterfly. Living in large clusters, they can quickly reduce a cabbage leaf to just a skeleton, and they contaminate the rest of the plant with an unpleasant smell.

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       Michael Chinery

      Caterpillars of the large white butterfly here surround a solitary caterpillar of the small white. Both species are major pests of cabbages and other brassicas.

      images Slugs Perhaps the most hated of all our garden residents, the slugs nibble their way through our flowers and vegetables with equal enthusiasm. But not all slugs are pests: some of them prefer rotting leaves and fungi (see here).

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       Michael Chinery

      One of the worst of the gardener’s foes: the netted slug is the one we usually find in our lettuces.

      Pest control

      Gardening will always be a competition, with the gardener pitting his or her wits against an assortment of uninvited guests which are doing their best to damage the plants. Although you may have to get tough from time to time, it need not be all-out war. Live and let live is always a good motto for the gardener.

       Avoid chemicals

      One can buy chemicals, i.e. poison, to control just about every garden visitor, but they have many drawbacks. There is always a risk of killing useful or harmless creatures as well as pests. Killing useful creatures, such as ladybirds, may actually lead to an increase in the garden’s aphid population and a tendency to use ever increasing doses of insecticide. Although most modern pesticides break down rapidly in the soil, heavy applications may lead to a build-up of residues that can damage the soil and enter the food chains, where they can have far-reaching and surprising effects. Killing harmless creatures does have a knock-on effect by denying birds and other animals their natural food, so your garden will be much less interesting. The true wildlife gardener uses СКАЧАТЬ