Garden Supplies News

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As someone who tries to stick to organic principles and avoids the use of pesticides wherever possible, I am always interested to hear of ways to encourage natural predators. We all know that ladybugs eat aphids and so I always try to give them a helping hand to find their prey. And there are now several biological control products that you can purchase from the garden center to deal with different pests.

Fortunately most native plants have their own natural predators to keep them under control, but problems arise when plants are imported from abroad. In this case there is no natural predator and the plant can run wild and crowd out native plants.

I found an interesting article by Michael Behar which highlights the problems caused by invasive plants such as spotted knapweed which originates in Europe. He describes how Noah Poritz a 52-year-old entomologist earns his living selling beneficial bugs. In the case of the spotted knapweed the predator is the knapweed root weevil. Read more..

If you were asked to define your personality type I imagine you would describe yourself as extrovert or introvert or maybe somewhere in between. But have you heard of “The Crabapple Branch Gardener’s Personality Test”? Click the link and give it a try.