Re: birds in the garden (and fennel)
- Subject: Re: birds in the garden (and fennel)
- From: John MacGregor j*@earthlink.net
- Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 12:47:56 -0700
on 6/23/03 10:15 AM, Sean A. O'Hara at sean@support.net wrote:
> In our former garden,. we kept a rather troublesome honeysuckle bush/vine
> around because it was so attractive to aphids, which in turn were very
> attractive to bands of Bushtits that would visit to strip the honeysuckle
> of this apparently tasty little morsels! We enjoyed seeing these little
> guys tumbling about in the branches of the vine, searching our each
> individual aphid, all the while making their little peeping noises. It was
> a delight we looked forward to each season, and certainly worth the trouble
> of keeping this (often unsightly) honeysuckle in the garden.
Sean, Joe, all,
The two very large plants of Lonicera X heckrottii 'Gold Flame' perform
this same function in the Hall garden, although some other kinds of
honeysuckle I have tried have succumbed to martyrdom from aphids--despite
the bushtits. Another kind of plant I maintain for our several-times-a-day
insect cleanup crew is large, strategically-placed clumps of bronze
fennel--Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpurascens' (the plain green form works just
as well).
>From the time fennel starts to form flower buds, its sugar production
increases. This produces copious numbers of gourmet aphids that taste like
anise-flavored honey. (Try them! You'll like them!) In addition to Bush
Tits, they also attract several kinds of predatory insects--especially
ladybugs, syrphid flies, and lacewings, that lay eggs on the fennel and
whose larvae harvest the aphid feast. Within a few weeks one can find
adults, egg cases, larvae (aphid-lions that look like orange and black
alligators), and pupae of the ladybugs. Unroll a leaf petiole, and you are
liable to find something that looks like a small green slug--the syrphid fly
larva, which emerges to gorge on aphids. And lacewing larvae (like green or
brown alligators with a pair of pincers on the front) hatch from a tiny
green or white egg on the end of a slender filament and scurry up and down
the plants, using their hollow pincers to siphon the sugary juices out of a
hundred aphids each day. Add to this that many kinds of tiny parasitic
wasps eat the pollen of the open blossoms, and fennel is a veritable factory
predatory insects, from which these proliferating creatures disperse onto
plants throughout the garden.
I know that native plant enthusiasts decry fennel as a plant that, under
mediterranean climate conditions, proliferates and crowds out native
species. But it has been established in California since the eighteenth
century (it is reported that it was among the seeds Father Serra brought
along in his first trip to this land). One should be careful not to plant
it near natural areas where it is not already growing. But in urban gardens
where the excess seedlings can be weeded out, it is one of the best defenses
against having to employ poisonous sprays to control aphids and other
sucking insects. Besides, it provides endless entertainment for bird
watchers who love the antics of bushtits and for people who enjoy observing
the creatures and natural processes of a balanced garden environment.
John MacGregor
South Pasadena, CA 91030
USDA zone 9 Sunset zones 21/23
