Attracting Beneficial Insects With Beautiful Landscape

Image - Watershed Nursery

When ever I plan a landscape, it's almost always with natives to the area and for the purpose of helping out the native wildlife in the process. While I certainly want an appealing eye candy pleasing to the senses look, I also want to provide food sources, housing habitat and other foraging and cover components for which numerous critters can compliment and actually take care of your landscape or garden for you. Here's a picture of one from my old property in the Mountains above Anza , California. First this variety of Cal-Coffeeberry is listed as 'Mount San Bruno' or even another one which is a little bigger and known for producing a lot of beautiful berries is 'eve case'. This variety is known for being a low grower and remains small in form. The one in the picture below under a Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreya) is approximately 24 years old. Not bad for a little shrub. It has a bigger brother high up on that same bank, though I'm not sure you'll notice it.

image: Mine

I chose this shrub and it's larger variety at the top for the obvious reasons. It's evergreen and from it's appearance at the top photo, you'll notice it has the characteristic berries which ripen unevenly throughout the season giving variety of colouring with gold, green, red and purple. Any shrub in the backcountry of Southern California helps out the ground loving birds like Quail, California Thrashers, California Towhee, Hermit Thrush and Even the common Scrub Jay. The Scrub Jays apparently love the berries. I didn't realize that at first, though I had seen them in the bush. It was one spring when everything was blooming that I notice under a couple of my Manzanitas that there were multiple Coffeeberry Seedlings which had germinated under the dander(or mulch layer) of those Manzanitas. I thought to myself, 'how kool', but before I could transplant any of them, the pathogen which causes damping off kept the understory of the Manzanita weed free and they all died at the root collar. No matter, it was an interesting and educational experience none the less. 

When planting your natives no matter where you are, take into consideration the "Earth's Internet" (mycorrhizal networked associations)  which will allow your plants to benefit from the mycorrhizae grid network. I have never planted these past two decades a native or any other ornamental plant without first providing an inoculent of endo-mycorrhizae inoculent into the mix. I also never amend the soil. It's not necessary. Simply apply a generous layer of compost or mulch around the plant's immediate perimeter. This prevents water loss and weed control for the young plant. also, when you visit the Nursery, resist the temptation to purchase a 5 gallon over a one gallon plant just because you want instant landscape. I understand the impatience, I fight it all the time as well. But a small one gallon will eventually out perform in my experience.

One pleasant surprise I wasn't counting on at all, were all of the insects for which those not so showy flowers(as you can see from the top pic) were attracting, specifically in the Gnat, fly, bee, wasp, mosquito, beetle and some butterfly families to what are not at all again a showy flower. What I did notice was a sticky substance around the leaves of the flower cluster which for the most part are a dull inconspicuous green. Nothing at all fancy or attractive about them. Well not to a human anyway.  There must have been some type of aroma or fragrance given off by the plant that drove those critters nuts because they were climbing and fumbling all over themselves to get a turn at the feeding trough. I couldn't smell it though. What was unusual was to see the phenomenal numbers and the variety of insects that didn't seem to normally hang out together, let alone climb all over each other in such masses. One bright spot I noticed were the numerous tiny parasitic wasps, not the usual giant mud wasps, paper wasps or ground dwelling Yellow Jackets we all flee from (they were there also of course) , but it was those tiny fellows, the ones that lay eggs on the backs of grubs, worms or caterpillars and keep their numbers from decimating your vegetable gardens. Here's an example of the type I'm referring to.

Okay, you get the picture now, but this next photo below is what they can do for your garden.

Image by Garden to Table

As everyone knows, Tomato Hornworms can be devastating to any garden if left unchecked. On that note I have seen where commercial agricultural ventures like Vineyards are now planting rows of Lavender Plants which allow attract all manner of pollinators, but especially good food sources for these beneficial predator wasp insects during the summer months and it's working. Several Vineyards in  Northern California have reported not having to use pesticides anymore. The main predator valued is any number of tiny predatory wasp which seek out and lay their eggs on the backs of caterpillar pests. These wasps do not feed on other insects, but their young do. They however do feed on nectar to sustain themselves and if such resources are absent, they won't be anywhere near your garden. Now interestingly, Charles Darwin found the life cycle of this wasp a little creepy and offere it was proof that a loving God didn't exist. And his followers have followed in his footsteps with a dogma strategy called "Argument From Poor Design" which fails miserable and has unfortunately trashed nature as flawed and badly design. This has been disastrous as it has held good science back in leanring about how nature works and pursuing a more ecological approach to pest management. Instead we have been gifted by lousy science with all manner of toxic chemical pesticies. I'm not saying Darwin's question ws not legit. It it, but it's not a scientific one which can be experimented for using his metaphysics.

Image by George Sherman

The bottom line is, when planning for garden or landscape, remember such plants as California Coffeeberry which is a native. There are surely other ecosystems and plants that work equally well in other states or even countries of the world. Where ever you live, be observant of the nature around you when you're out walking and ask questions of local experts or nurserymen. Ask friends or nieghbours who you know for sure are adept and prolific at greenthumb gardening. I'm sure with the info available these days, they most assuredly are up to scratch on the latest organic methods. BTW, for your information, that photo above right is a commercial Vineyard whose owners planted Lavender which flower all summer long and attract beneficial parasitic wasps which allows them to not have to spray pesticides. Even some commercial growers are getting in on the Biomimicy game and saving not only money, but building a better and healthier product in the process.