5 Garden Friendly Bugs
Home gardening which includes flower gardens, container gardening as well as vegetable gardening can draw many garden bugs both good bugs and garden pests.
We know that not all bugs and insects in our gardens are beneficial so it’s important to know which are your friends and which you should get rid of.
The five insects or bugs listed below are beneficial to your garden so be careful not to kill them like I was doing before I realized what I was doing.
1. The Common Ground Beetles
I see the common ground beetle in my garden and yard but usually only when I turn something over that they are hiding in for the day as they are mostly nocturnal.
I remember as a kid on our farm I would catch them and put them in bottles to take to school to show my friends.
Why do I like the common ground beetles today? Well they help me keep the slug population under control, although I have to help them if there has been too much rain as slugs seem to multiply a whole lot more in damp conditions.
2. Ladybugs
Ladybugs are one garden friendly bug people actually purchase for their gardens as they are great helpers when it come to garden pest control.
Part of their diet include such pests as aphids, mites, white flies and other harmful insects. Keeping ladybugs in your home garden will help to keep some of your garden pest problem at bay.
3. Honeybees
The bees in your garden aren’t going to eat other garden pests but they have another talent that helps your garden.
As honeybees and bumblebees fly from flower to flower eating nectar they can’t help but to collect pollen on their legs and body which helps to pollinate the flowers in your garden.
I love watching them go from blossom to blossom on our rhododendrons by the dozens.
In recent years there has been a noticeable decrease in honeybee numbers which could quickly become a real issue for the farmers needing bees to pollinate their crops. Going green and staying green is a great step in helping the bees.
4. Dragonflies
I really don’t ever see dragonflies in our gardens but I do see them where people have some kind of water feature or when I go fishing of course.
I can sit and watch them buzz around like little helicopters and how they hover and land on things. However, they are more than just great to watch as they love munching down on garden and yard pests like those mosquitoes I love to hate.
5. Lacewings
The lacewing is another garden friendly insect who loves to eat aphids for breakfast, lunch and supper. So they are a good insect to have in your home garden.
They don’t stop at just aphids though. They also like caterpillars, mealy bugs, and leafminers, and can eat hundreds of pest every single week.
It’s good to know and learn that not all garden insects are pests or harmful but instead are beneficial and help you avoid using harmful pesticides in your garden.
Raining Cats, Dogs and Robins Here in Moncton
Some days I’m actually glad I get up before 5am most days. Today it allowed me to get the stuff I wanted done in the yard finished.
I wasn’t back in the house 5 minutes and the rain started. Within minutes it was raining so hard I thought it might destroy my newly planted vegetable garden, before they have a chance to grow deep roots.
The robins in our yard as getting less fearful of us and I see them getting closer and closer as I work the dirt and turn over fresh worms. The kind of stare at them and bounce until I move away long enough for them to grab one.
Quite often I see a robin or a bluejay perched in one of our big pine trees outside the back door. The look like they are waiting from to come out and dig worms for them.
The bluejays don’t sit there long when I come out but the robins will sit there long enough for me to take a photo.
I love working from home. I made a coffee and headed into my office where I was working on a post for one of my other blogs. Just as I got to me desk I noticed a robin sitting on the rose bushes outside the window, to get out of the rain.
I see a lot of robins and they come close but never this close. This robin wasn’t six inches away from the window, just watching me. Pretty cool but even though my camera was just inches from my hand he was gone become I could grab it.
We Learned What We Need To Know To Divide Our Clematis Successfully
I purchased and planted my first clematis in 2008 when I was very much a beginner at gardening. I watched it closely and remember wondering if it was going to survive.
Well after a couple of weeks I noticed it had really started to take off and my worries ended. It was so beautiful that I had to get another clematis for our yard.
We now have four clematis in our yard. Our first clematis has grown so big that I’d like to divide it and transplant sections elsewhere in the yard. This will make the existing clematis closer in size to the two purple clematis in the raised bed.
Just To Make It Even More Beautiful
We have a lot of pink columbines that are along the south side of our garden shed but they are at one end while our purple clematis is way down at the opposite end of the shed.
What I am thinking is to transplant the purple clematis to the middle of the trellis on the shed wall, then transplant a group of columbines on either side. That would make it much more pleasing to the eye.
Once I dig up our original clematis and divide it I will put one of those sections on the other side of each group of columbines. I think it will be breath taking.
Fireman Geoff Our Neighbour
Our next door neighbour Geoff is a great guy, a great neighbour and he’s a fireman. Firemen have been my heroes for more than 50 years so I would like to do something for him.
Geoff is just now finishing his new shed and looks great but it’s going to need something to make it fit more into his yard and that’s a clematis or two climbing up the side of the shed.
I already gave him one of my sunflowers which I started from seed this year. Just an extra bright spot in his yard.
Learning More About Clematis Care
I have split and transplanted a few plants over the years but never a clematis so I thought I better check online to be sure I do this correctly. It would certainly suck to kill in the process. So I will be back in a few minutes to continue.
Okay, I’m back, took a bit longer than I thought as I couldn’t seem to find a video on the subject and had to read a few blog posts about dividing and transplanting sections to other areas of our garden.
The lack of video instruction for dividing or splitting clematis had me thinking it must be as easy as the other flowers and vines I have divided and transplanted to different areas of our yard.
Take a look at Simply Clematis: Clematis Made Simple, I think it might just be the clematis book for you.
How Will I Divide Our Clematis Safely
I’ve learned there are a couple of keys to dividing and transplanting clematis successfully.
- Be sure you’re clematis is strong and healthy.
- Don’t do it when your clematis is still blooming.
- Use the right shovel
Okay I added that point about the right shovel because the first time I transplanted something I dug right into the root ball using a round mouth shovel. Later we bought a spade which worked so much better the next time.
With the spade I was able to keep the root ball in tact without needing to make the dirt ball way bigger than the root ball. I didn’t kill the plant using the round mouth shovel but did damage a lot of roots. I was fortunate the plant was very healthy and strong so it survived.
Cleaning The Root Ball
There was so much dirt on the root ball I couldn’t see the roots so I got the garden hose out and washed the roots enough to see what I was about to do to my clematis. Next I grabbed a hand saw and cut the root system down the middle without difficulty.
Once I had the roots divided I felt they were still to big so I took each half and cut them in half again. They then looked just about the right size to match the other two clematis in the raised bed.
