You plant and tend your gar¬den hoping to enjoy a bountiful harvest and beautiful blooms. Despite proper planning and planting, insects can move in and wreak havoc on your gar¬den. The good news is you can manage problem pests without harming the pollinators that are so important to your garden.
Start by reviewing the care your plants need to thrive. Make sure you are watering thoroughly and only when needed. Consider mulching the soil with shredded leaves, evergreen needles or oth¬er organic material to conserve moisture, moderate soil temper¬ature, suppress weeds and im¬prove the soil as they decompose.
Only fertilize if needed. Over fertilization, especially with high nitrogen and fast release products, can stimulate lush, succulent growth that is more susceptible to insect damage. Let your plants, not the fertil¬izer label, be your guide. Pale plants and those not performing as expected may need a nutri¬ent boost. Consider a low nitro¬gen, slow release fertilizer that won’t stimulate lush, succulent growth or damage the plants when the weather is hot and dry.
Tolerate a bit of damage and wait for the songbirds and ben¬eficial insects, like lady beetles and green lacewings, man¬age these pests for you. If the damage is more than you can tolerate, consider using an eco-friendly control product.
One you may not be familiar with is lightweight horticul¬ture oil, like the OMRI-certified Summit Year-Round® Spray Oil (YRSO). This can be applied to garden plants during the grow¬ing season to manage insects such as aphids, mites, adelgids, scale, leafhoppers and white¬flies. Horticultural oils have been used for many years be¬cause they are low risk and ef¬fective against a variety of pests.
Horticulture oils kill insects by blocking the air holes through which they breathe. This makes them effective against all stages of the insect’s develop¬ment from egg through adult.
The oil must contact the in¬sect to be effective. If a ben¬eficial insect lands on a treated plant, it will not be injured. Avoid treating plants when bees and other beneficial insects are present, so you do not acciden¬tally spray them with the oil.
YRSO horticulture oil (Sum¬mitResponsibleSolutions.com) can also help reduce the in¬cidence and spread of aphid-transmitted viruses. It inter¬feres with insect feeding which helps reduce the transmis¬sion of the virus by the insect.
Lightweight horticulture oils have a minimal waiting period between the last application and harvest. Always check the label before using any product wheth¬er organic, natural or synthetic. You will find valuable informa¬tion on the label, including ap¬plication rates and directions to help you attain the best results.
You may also find some added benefits when reviewing the la¬bel. Horticulture oils can help in managing powdery mildew on plants like beebalm, phlox, peonies and cucumbers. Some can be applied when plants are dormant to smother and kill overwintering mites and aphids as well as egg masses of pests like the gypsy moth.
Monitor your garden through¬out the summer. You will en¬joy watching your plants grow, make timely harvests and discover insect pests when the populations are small and much easier to manage.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, includ¬ing Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a col¬umnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and was commissioned by Sum-mit for her expertise to write this article. Myers’s web site is http://www.melindamyers.com.
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