Re: email list suggestion - organic or not .....
Diane wrote:
>
> ----- 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
You are indeed a gardener after my own heart, however even I am finding
my garden weedier than I like following an extraordinarily wet November
with three or four times the expected rainfall. At least the vigour of
the weeds maust say something for the fertility of my ground!!
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
