Have you ever wondered what garden bugs do when they’re not feeding on your plants? All insect pests have a life cycle that can vary from one species to another, but a significant part of their lives may be spent reproducing or hibernating in parts of the garden. If a gardener disrupts the bugs’ habitat or kills insects before they begin to feed on garden annuals and perennials, he can prevent plant damage and even stop the spread of insect-borne diseases.


The Importance of Fall Cleanup

When the garden season winds down, many gardeners find it prudent to leave seed heads on their flowers to provide nourishment to wild birds. However, gardeners are wise to clean up leaf litter, decaying fruit, and spent annual plants from the garden. Garden debris is a rich habitat for over wintering insects like stink bugs, Mexican bean beetles, thrips, and spider mites. Infected plant parts that falls to the ground can allow pests like the rose midge and the rose sawfly to enter the soil to pupate over the winter.

Firewood Safety

Firewood isn’t part of the garden, so gardeners may overlook the potential of the woodpile to introduce pests and diseases into other flowering trees in the landscape. Gardeners who have trees cut down due to death from a canker, blight, or rust should ask the arborist to remove the tree, not cut it up and leave it on the premises for firewood. Storing wood from infected trees increases the chances of the pest spreading to other trees in the landscape or neighborhood.

Gardeners shouldn’t buy more wood than they can use in one season, to minimize the chances of dormant insects emerging from bark in the spring. If the firewood source is suspect, gardeners can remove the bark from the wood to deny pests like the viburnum leaf beetle a hiding place.

Keep the Garden Weed Free

Weeds do more than compete with flowers for nutrients and space. Weeds can also provide a habitat for garden pests like grasshoppers and thrips. Keep in mind that pulling weeds in the garden may not be enough to make an inhospitable environment for insect pests. Nearby fence rows and weedy ditches can be a breeding ground for garden pests.

If it’s impossible to eliminate the source of the weeds, gardeners may plant a trap crop between the weeds and the garden. The philosophy behind trap cropping is the notion that the trap crop is more appealing to the insect pest than the main ornamental flowers, so insects focus their destruction on the trap crop. When combined with other organic pest control methods, trap cropping can reduce or eliminate the need for spraying, even the need for organic bug sprays. Trap cropping facilitates the beneficial insect population, because it maintains the insect population that attracts beneficial insects. An example of a trap crop is mustard, which lures flea hoppers, webworms, and aphids away from flowers.

A trap crop shouldn’t serve as an everlasting buffet or insect pest nursery. Once the insect population is at its peak, gardeners must remove or otherwise destroy the trap crop to prevent the insects from producing future generations of pests.

Pros and Cons of Mulch

A 3-inch layer of organic mulch helps the garden soil retain moisture, keeps roots cool, and suppresses weeds. Mulch can also attract slugs and snails, which need a cool, moist retreat from the afternoon sun. Rather than get rid of a beneficial mulch layer, gardeners can place boards, wet cardboard, or watermelon rinds in a shady part of the garden to lure slugs. Check these traps daily, and discard the pests.