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« It’s Almost Time For Spring Pruning | Call to Green Gardeners »

Green Garden Visitors

powderpuff-and-butterfly.jpgon-gossamer-wings.jpgdragonfly.jpgbutterfly-milkwee.jpgIf your garden is Green, the following pictures are among some of the types of visitors you are likely getting in your garden.Recently I was disappointed it was so wet with the non stop spring rains lately and the mosquitos. They were keeping me out of the garden.Today I see the sun and dragonflies have arrived to take care of those biting critters. Here are a few pics of some of the garden visitors in my south Florida garden. Just click on the picture to enlarge it.

This entry was posted on 21. April 2010 at 12:59 and is filed under Green Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Green Garden Visitors”

  1. Joanne McShane says:
    5. May 2010 at 08:40

    I have a few questions about mulch. First, Does mulch around your plants invite or draw in bugs? Mulch makes my plants look tidy, but I am concerned that it brings in more bugs in and around my property. Is this true? Also, I heard the new Cocoa Shell Mulch sold at Home Depot, Target and other places really smells good, but I also heard it can be dangerous to dogs and other animals. Is that true? What would be a better alternative? I look forward to your response. Thanks! Joanne McShane

  2. Pinkie says:
    5. May 2010 at 08:59

    Joanne,

    Thanks for your questions. I have heard folks talk about how mulch draws in bugs before. But the truth of the matter is, insects are a part of any healthy garden. There are good bugs and pernicious ones, so the key is to create a balance in your landscape so that the insects keep each other in check. This is done through a myriad of garden practices. A couple things you can do are to keep your plants and soil healthy and plant a wide variety of plants, especially native plants, in the garden. This way your garden will attract a wide variety of insects.

    Scale is one of the most difficult problems we have in south Florida gardens. Ladybugs will eat scale. While you can buy ladybugs to let go in the garden, unless you have a garden which attracts them, you won’t necessarily be able to keep the good ones there.

    As for good mulches, always use natural mulches, such as malaleuca or eucalyptus. Some mulches will deter some pests. So, mixing mulches is a good way to go. I have eucalyptus and pine in my landscape. I also allow tree leaves to drop and build up and leave them with purchased mulches.

    Stay away from dyed, recycled mulches. Though they sound like they would be Green, they are not. Helen Gabriele Soto at the University of Miami and other researches found that mulches made from construction debris have unsafe levels of arsenic and formaldehyde in them. These carcinogens can be absorbed through the skin and are especially dangerous to children and pets.

    Unnatural mulches do nothing for the landscape. So stay away from rubber and plastic often used to as mulches or as weed barriers. Natural mulches break down in the soil and add nutrition to the soil. Plastics are known to leach PCBs when heated, so can certainly leach these known carcinogens into the living landscape when they heat up in your garden.

    As for the cocoa shell. Stay away from it. I have read that it can be fatal to who dogs eat it.

    Hope this is helpful.

  3. Joanne McShane says:
    7. May 2010 at 22:57

    Thanks for the information. I appreciate it very much Pinkie!

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