Seeking bug balance in the garden when controlling pests

Instead of using chemicals, there are eco-friendly solutions to deal with garden pests that emerge in the warmer months

IT’S summertime and, if you believe the words of that old song, the livin’ is easy.

But for some gardeners, summer also brings a good deal of concern caused by successive invasions of pests seemingly intent on munching their way through gardens.

Now I dislike pests as much as the next gardener, but we really shouldn’t let them bug us (pun intended).

The reality is that if we garden along organic lines, using no or minimal chemicals, most gardens reach a natural balance where the good bugs keep the bad bugs in check — and if there’s ever a situation where the baddies get on top, nearly always there’s an eco-friendly solution.

I was reminded of that recently when I moved a pile of weeds, setting in motion a technicolour mass of harlequin bugs.

Now the harlequin bug (Dindymus versicolour), native to Australia, might be an attractive critter with its black and vibrant orange or red body, but I know it can also make a mess of rhubarb, pumpkin and even tomato plants if it gets the taste.

Even ornamentals such as hollyhocks and nasturtiums and some fruit trees are not safe.

Rather than a muncher, the harlequin bug is more a sucker, extracting sap from young foliage, causing wilting and, in extreme cases, plant death.

My instinctive reaction, borne of years of gardening, was to reach for a can of knock-’em-dead spray. Yet, in the interest of research, I resisted.

Instead I studied these fascinating bugs with their triangular black markings for a time, noting the intriguing mating ritual male and female harlequin bugs indulge in of locking themselves end-to-end in pairs.

With male and female each heading in a different direction, it’s interestingly the larger female of each pair that controls the forward (for her, at least) motion, while the male is seemingly happy to be pulled along backwards for the ride.

I don’t know if harlequin bugs are big on consuming aphrodisiacs, yet most of them in my disturbed swarm of several hundred were locked tight in these sexual couplings and remained so for the 20 minutes I watched.

Eventually, and feeling just a little voyeuristic, I put a stop to their ardour — not with a spray can but with bucket of natural harlequin bug killer I recalled the former writer of this column, Peter Cundall, having recommended.

Comprising about twice the amount of dishwashing liquid you would normally use for dishes added to a third-full bucket of warm water, it quickly had them reeling.

Some gardeners like to add a dash of vinegar to the mix but either way the result is the same.

I splashed this natural remedy over them, yet equally effective is shaking the branches of whatever is being attacked over the bucket.

You might miss a few but with luck most will fall into the soapy water and quickly suffocate.

Yes, I felt slightly guilty at ending the lives of such fascinating sap-suckers at such intimate moments in their lives, but we gardeners need to be tough.

Besides, this treatment is quite selective, affecting none but the immediate villains — and it’s safe for humans.

In the past, chemical cocktails containing doubtful substances such as carbaryl, now banned for backyard garden use, would have been used without a second thought

Thankfully, many gardeners now have become far more enlightened about the need for minimal intrusion into the natural order, and concern for the wellbeing of us humans.

As with harlequin bugs, soapy water is a proven control of other summer pests such as white fly, thrips and aphids.

It might take a few follow-up sprays, but it’s small price for knowing you are doing the right thing by nature, you and your family.