Tomato Hornworms and Parasitic Wasps

After squirrels and deer, the tomato hornworm may be the bane of a tomato grower's existence. Fortunately, tomato hornworms and parasitic wasps go together like tomatoes and basil. Finding a tomato hornworm in your garden is not the end of the world if you catch them early, and if you employ natural gardening techniques, they garden is brought into balance by bracondid wasps.

What's the Benefit of Having Spiders in the Garden?

What is the benefit of having spiders in the garden? That is a rhetorical question, I am not really asking. As a gardener, I know the benefits of having a predator live in my garden. Making the garden hospitable to spiders, and allowing them to biologically control garden pests, is all part of gardening chemical free and being as natural as possible. I am not a hippy or anything like that; I wanted to have bugs in my garden to photograph so I decided I would stop using bug sprays, and just let nature take its course. For the most part, it has worked out fabulously and I have no regrets. Although, nothing challenges my commitment to natural methods of pest control more than seeing the garden covered in spider webs during the summer. Spider webs like this one I took in the garden recently. If you have a fear of spiders close your eyes for a second and think of England as you scroll down past this picture of a spider and its web.

Large Milkweed Bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus

A large milkweed bugs, Oncopeltus fasciatus, is a red-orange and black bug that you'll commonly find on and around milkweed plants. From a distance large milkweed bugs look a lot like box elder bugs, but they're larger and have different coloring. If you're growing a wildlife garden and plant milkweed plants for butterflies and bees you may  already be very familiar with the large milkweed bug.

Slugs In My Garden (Green Thumb Sunday)

Recently after some heavy rains I went out into my garden to collect nasturtium seeds. As I was lifting up some of the foliage, to look for fallen seeds on the ground, I noticed a few slugs. My first reaction was "Cool! A new bug to photograph" but then it dawned on my that having these garden pests in the garden wasn't such a good thing.

Eastern Tailed-Blue Butterfly

Recently I came across a small light colored butterfly in my garden that at first glance I thought was a Small Cabbage White I had seen in my garden here in Chicago. When I approached the butterfly it fluttered away revealing a blue or gray tint to the upper leaves. I knew immediately this wasn't a Small Cabbage White.

Leafminer Bugs

"Leafminers bugs" describe the larvae of moths, flies and beetles that feed on the interior tissue of the leaf of a bug. The damage done by these garden pests to our plants is easy to spot because of the "mines" created as the bugs chews inside the leaf. In some instances the leafminer will cause a light colored blotch on the leaf, in really bad cases the plant will look discolored and/or drop leaves. It is rare that leafminers do enough damage to kill a plant, what they destroy mostly is the aesthetic value of your ornamentals for a short period of time.

Natural Methods Of Pest Control: Using Carnivorous Plants

In "Natural Methods of Pest Control" I blogged about how I was using beneficial bugs like lady bugs to control garden pests that were attacking plants in my garden. To read about the use of lady bugs follow the link above so you can see the photos and the video I made.

Small White-Pieris rapae

The Small White butterfly commonly called Small Cabbage White can be found in Europe, north Africa and Asia. It was accidentally introduced into Canada in 1860 from Europe and has since spread as far south as northwest Mexico.

Black Swallowtail-Papilio polyxenes

One day while photographing the Red Admiral Butterflies in my garden this Black Swallowtail stopped for a short visit. I'd never seen a Papilio polyxenes in my garden before so I rushed to get the camera to photograph it. Unfortunately it didn't stay still long enough to get a sharp picture of it but I was at least able to document its visit to my garden.

Lace Bugs

I decided to pull out some sunflowers in my garden that were starting to look particularly bad. The leaves were turning yellow or developing yellow spots and just generally not looking very good. While I was cutting them down and bagging the plants I noticed some small bugs on the leaves that I hadn't seen before. At first I thought they were crumbs or some kind of plant debris but then I started noticed them bouncing up and down sort of like a needle on a sewing machine.

Spotted Cucumber Beetle

The spotted Cucumber Beetle is a common beetle found in the home garden. It has a black head and antennae with a yellow-green colored body. It has twelve dark spots on the top and three pairs of short legs. One common name is the southern corn rootworm because in the larvae stage it feeds on the roots of plants.

Graphocephala coccinea: Candystriped Leafhopper

I found this striking bug in the garden a while back and was mesmerized by the colors but I couldn't get a good picture because it kept hopping away whenever I got close enough. I'd been waiting to see if I could get a better photo of it before uploading but I haven't seen them in the garden since I took this picture.

Brown Lacewing

As the sun was setting one day I went out into the garden looking to photograph bugs. And like is common for me I got down on the ground and close up to the foliage and waited to see what moved or landed. Moments later this rather boring looking bug landed on some foliage and I decided to snap a photograph of it.

Recently while clearing out my hard drive I came across the photo and was pleasantly surprised by the effect of the setting sun on it's wings. To me it looks like the sun streaming in through a stained glass window and aside from this "aint it cool" effect I didn't think much of this bug that I've seen a lot around Chicago.

That all changed today when I learned that this brown lacewing bug is actually very beneficial in the garden. I don't know if it helps with pollinating flowers but I've learned that in the larvae stage and even as adults they are voracious eaters of aphids and mites. Like ladybugs they are a biological control of pests that we should encourage instead of using insecticides.

One really cool (to me at least) factoid about this bug it is that it's also known as "trash bug" because Green Lacewing larvae cover themselves in debris and insect carcases as seen in this photo. I'm guessing this is a method of camouflage that helps the larvae avoid becoming a meal .

Chalybion californicum- Mud Dauber Wasp

I was photographing some butterflies in my garden when this metallic blue wasp landed near me and startled me. The blue green color of this bug is striking and I'd never seen one like it in Chicago before. After some Googling I've learned that it is a Chalybion californicum or commonly called a Mud Dauber Wasp.

Atteva punctella-Ailanthus Webworm Moth

Atteva punctella or Ailanthus Webworm Moth is thought to be native to South Florida and the American tropics. How it made it to my garden is a bit of a mystery because it isn't suppose to over winter in cold climates.

Danaus plexippus- Monarch Butterfly

While I was admiring and photographing the the Red Admiral butterflies in my garden a Danaus plexippus landed right next to them on one of the remaining poppy flowers in my garden. This Monarch Butterfly landed for a few seconds allowing me to capture a couple of shots of it before it took off.

Vanessa atalanta 'Red Admiral' Butterfly

The Echinacea purpurea blooms in the garden have attracted a number of butterflies into the garden. Vanessa atalanta or 'Red Admiral' as it is commonly known has been the one to show up in greater numbers.

Natural Methods Of Pest Control

This morning I woke up to find that a couple of the seed heads on my poppies were covered with black aphids. My first reaction was to run inside and pick up an insecticide but I remembered that I am trying not to use chemicals in my garden like I did last year. I almost searched on-line for one of those homemade concoctions to kill them but then I remembered that I had ladybugs somewhere in the garden.

 

Want Bees In Your Garden? Tempt Them With Color

My favorite colors in the garden are green and black. Did you know bees, like humans may have a favorite color?

"Researchers took bees that had never seen real flowers from nine southern Germany bumblebee colonies and exposed them to violet or blue artificial flowers in the lab. The investigators found these bees—one of the most numerous bumblebee species in Europe—often prefer violet to blue, seemingly innately."



Bees Have Favorite Color.
I love bumblebees. They have to be my favorite bee and because I like them so much I allow Clover to take over the garden and grow where it wants. The bumblebees love the flowers and visit them more than anything else in my garden.

Lightning Bug

I spotted the first lightning bug in the garden today and couldn't help smiling. To me nothing says summer in Chicago like catching the first lightning bug- which is really a soft bodied beetle and not a fly. Like just about everyone else, as a kid I caught these bugs and kept them in jars.