Re: email list suggestion - organic or not .....
----- Original Message -----
Moira wrote:
(snip)
> Mine too. One of the things which I have learnt in the last few years
is
> that even so-called organic remedies are by no means all benign or
even
> closely focused. Pyrethrum is the one which instantly springs to mind.
A
> great leap forward for me is that I have found is that by virtually
> ceasing to spray anything round the garden bar compost tea and seaweed
> extract the ecosystem has largely balanced itself up and the pest
> problem is now quite insignificant.
(snip)
This is exactly what my garden proves - that nature has controls for
living creatures. A garden that is allowed to develop its own methods
of control will be in balance. I think of all the years I used to burn
caterpillar nests on the apple trees until one day I noticed some
caterpillars with white dots on them and within a week, every
caterpillar nest was full of dead caterpillars. I learned that these
are the tiny egg sacs of parasitic wasps and that growing small-flowered
plants encouraged these beneficial insects and that the years of
burning caterpillar nests had interfered with this natural process of
control. This is just one example.
Most manicured gardens are not conducive to this type of gardening (in
nature, there is no bare ground) and many of the so-called weeds and
native plants are essential to creating this balance. In the
wilderness, you will not see a severe outbreak of anything - for
everything there is a control. I stumbled into this type of gardening
30 years ago through my love of nature and not wanting to destroy the
natural look of our property. Through the years I have "inserted" my
garden into the native growth and proved that rhododendrons, for
example, don't need a fussy peat bed and bark mulch. Plants compete and
coexist much as they do in their native Himalayas. They thrive on a
sloping bank amongst a dense growth of salal, mahonia, and sword ferns.
Every 2-3 years I tackle the bank to remove blackberry vines and thimble
berries and am always amazed to discover a Towhee nest or Song Sparrow
nest in every second sword fern.
If you must have an immaculate, sterile garden, perhaps you could devote
one corner to a small copse of native shrubs tangled together and let
the native grasses etc. provide a ground cover there - and never weed or
clear up leaves. You would be surprised how attractive this can be
throughout the different seasons with a little planning.
Diane
