This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

On Thursday David and I taught an all day long Master Gardener class about insects. What fun! Insects come in so many different colors, sizes, and shapes it boggles the mind. Some insects (the good bugs) are a gardener’s friend and some (the bad bugs) are foes. Learning how to identify friend from foe really helps in successful garden management. Your friends are the beneficial insects, the predators, parasites, or pollinators. Predators and parasites eat the insects that ruin your garden and pollinators pollinate the flowers on your fruit trees and vegetables. The list below is a continuation from David’s last blog post.

Butterflies and Moths. All of these insects belong to the order Lepidoptera, meaning scale-wing, because their wings are covered with minute, often colorful scales. Adults have four large wings and are often much appreciated for their grace and beauty. Their larvae, on the other hand, are caterpillars, cutworms, hornworms, corn earworms, tomato fruitworms, and many other very destructive pests of our food crops and ornamental plants. All lepidopterans have complete metamorphosis with larvae that are worm-like caterpillars which pupate in a chrysalis, cocoon, or in the soil. The larvae have chewing mouthparts and the adults have straw-like mouthparts for sucking up nectar.

Caterpillars come in many different colors and sizes. Some are very furry, some are quite smooth. Some are brightly colored and some match their background so perfectly they are very difficult to find.

Continue Reading »

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

This week Kathryn and I are teaching Entomology, the study of Insects, to the Master Gardeners. Insects are absolutely fascinating animals, some are the gardener’s friend and some are foes. How can you tell which is which? Use this handy guide to help you distinguish between pests and beneficial insects on your plants.

Beetles, Weevils, and Curculios. All members of this group belong to the order Coleoptera, meaning sheath (coleo) wing (ptera). In this group, the wing covers (the two fore wings) are hard, often shiny and colorful, and completely cover the abdomen. These insects have complete metamorphosis. The ladybird beetle (aka, lady bug) is a familiar representative of this group and one of the most beneficial insects in your garden. Many destructive pests are found in this group, in addition to the beneficial ones. As a group they are rather clumsy fliers compared to many other insects. They have mouthparts adapted for chewing.

Beetle eggs hatch into larvae that are distinctly different in appearance from the adult insect. Some are C-shaped, white grubs with brown heads and three pairs of jointed legs. They live in the soil and feed on plant roots. Others, like the ladybird beetle larvae, look like tiny monsters crawling over the leaves of your plants searching for aphids to eat.

Continue Reading »

We did our “design launch” yesterday for a somewhat technical but always delightfully written (and sometimes even funny) book on those underappreciated garden insects: Bees, Wasps, and Ants: The Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens. Believe me, you can’t really understand what’s going on in your garden without this book.

The most interesting thing I learned today is the existence of the “Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index” for bee/wasp/etc. stings.  It’s rather entertaining reading, and a not-so-gentle remembrance of stings past. This may not be news to everyone—there is a lengthy Wikpedia article here, but I love the idea that you can now put a number to your level of agony. Kind of like the Sleep Number bed.

The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index (Schmidt 1990)

1.0, Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.

1.2, Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.

1.8, Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.

2.0, Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.

2.0, Yellow jacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.

2.0, Honey bee and European hornet: Like a match-head that flips off and burns on your skin.

3.0, Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.

3.0, Paper wasp: Caustic and burning, distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.

4.0, Pepsis wasp (spider wasp): Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).

4.0+, Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

I recently bought a house, the former owners of which apparently considered rectangular concrete pavers the height of gardening style. When I moved in, there were pavers lining the equally rectangular mulched area surrounding the Japanese maple. They were lining the curb strip that the owners had filled with rocks (nothing pairs with rocks like cement, I always say). And, bafflingly, the pavers were spaced evenly along the front edge of our yard, separating several feet of weed-infested grass from … several more feet of weed-infested grass.

So it all needs some work. And while I have many grandiose dreams of what I’m going to do with the yard (none of which, oddly, involve the meatball shrubs currently lining the front walk), I’m spending most of my time right now raising my newborn son, the reason we moved into this new house.

But I have found time to do the bare minimum of yard work, which has so far involved gaining an intimate knowledge of the root systems of the many types of “dandelions” (or at least the March-August varieties; who knows what other surprises the Family Asteraceae has in store for me come Fall). And getting rid of those blasted pavers.

Continue Reading »