- (Focus Area) Yard & Garden
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What we've been waiting for all season...
A migratory monarch butterfly fluttered into our Vacaville garden at noon today (Tuesday, Sept. 17) and nectared on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola.
Then she treated us to a butterfly ballet.
The Danaus plexippus touched down, nectared, shot up, dropped down, and did it all over again, while male territorial longhorned bees tried to make her stay short.
But she hung around for and hour.
Wings up...and she was gone.
And then another flashed by...
It's migratory monarch season.
If you've noticed tiny, dark insects flying around your houseplants, you likely have fungus gnats. These tiny flies can be a nuisance indoors and may also damage your plants.
Fungus gnats lay their eggs in moist soil and their larvae feed on plant roots and decaying organic matter. Because of this, the key to managing fungus gnats is to let the soil dry out in between watering and don't overwater plants. Water plants from the bottom using saucers under pots. This keeps the top of the soil dry, discouraging fungus gnats.
Sticky traps can be placed in pots or near plants to catch fungus gnat adults. This is also a great way to monitor for fungus gnats. Pesticides, including several biological pesticides like...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's Friday Fly Day, when folks post images of flies.
Flies seem to the entomological equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield's "I-don't-get-no-respect" quote.
So how about a black syrphid fly, a Mexican cactus fly, Copestylum mexicanum, nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia?
The genus Copestylum includes more than 350 species in the new world, according to Martin Hauser, senior insect biosystematist with the Plant Pest Diagnostics Branch of the California Department of Food...
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a science-based pest management process which focuses on managing the ecosystem for the long-term prevention of pests and the damage they cause. The University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) has developed an IPM program dedicated to helping Californians “prevent and solve pest problems with the least unintended impacts on people and their environment.” For the home gardener, a guiding principle of IPM is to understand why your landscape favors particular pests, and then enact changes which will make that environment less attractive to those pests.
One component of the IPM approach is to use biological control measures...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In your childhood, somebody probably gave you a jack-in-the-box toy, a music box that you crank up, and then the lid springs opens and out pops a wildly dressed clown, startling you and everyone around you.
A praying mantis sighting is something like that, but without the music box. You're walking in the garden and suddenly you notice that the Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, appears to have an extra petal.
You look closer and you see a triangular head with bulging eyes. And a spiked foreleg that looks as if it's extending a hand in (fake) friendship. It's a praying mantis and it's staring right at you.
Such was the case recently when a female praying mantis, Mantis...