Existential Choices: Gardeners v Bugs

 

“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.”
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – 65 AD)

 

It was a perfect night for icy gin & tonics.

As the sunshine slipped into the golden hour, my husband and I were content to sit outside and survey the narrow slip of garden that straddles the back of our property line.  Ours is a new garden, a young garden, just a year old, an eccentric mélange of foliage and flowers.

My husband remarked, “Something is eating that green bush. There’s webbing all over it. Did you know?”

“Yes. I know. Genista caterpillars.”

“Genista what?”

I turned to look at our mountain laurel, as robust a specimen of the Texas native Dermatophyllum secundiflorum as I’ve ever seen.  “Genista caterpillars. Nothing to worry about,” I assured him.

“But they’re eating your plant. Aren’t you a gardener? Shouldn’t you do something?”

“They’re not hurting it,” I said. “They’re just eating the new growth.”
 
“You’re going to let them damage it?”

“Yes.”

“You should kill them.”

“NO…I shouldn’t. They’re bird food. We like birds, right? Mountain laurels evolved with caterpillars. They can cope. Look how healthy it is. See how big it is? I think the caterpillars are making it put out new growth.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” He was incredulous. Nevertheless, I carried on.

“You know how when you trim the tip of a branch, that can spur growth below? The caterpillars could be why the plant is growing so well.”

“You’re making that up.”

“It is called science,” I replied.

Was I being snarky? Yes.

I had been watching this pattern of caterpillar fine dining followed by fresh new foliar growth ALL SUMMER LONG!

Had I let loose and unleashed my inner Hermione Granger, I might have engaged him in a scintillating discussion of compensatory growth processes. Plants have been coping with pressure from herbivores since forever. However, because it annoys me when my sweetheart teases and calls me the Hermione Granger of gardeners, I let the matter drop.

BUT…apparently I’m still chewing on it, so here we are.

I was perplexed by my husband’s intolerance for caterpillars.

When he was in second grade, my husband’s city-mouse mother was furious about an army of colorful caterpillars devouring her dill. He defended the voiceless caterpillars. He insisted they would become butterflies if given more time, but Mom wasn’t buying it. So, he poked holes in the top of a mason jar and rescued a single caterpillar. It grew into a majestic yellow swallowtail, but sadly not soon enough to save its siblings.

In sharing this story, I mean no disrespect to my mother-in-law. I’ve got no right to cast stones.

I have my own considerably long rap sheet of insecticidal crimes. Over the years, I have stepped on spiders, fogged fleas, sprayed roaches, and smacked innumerable flies and mosquitoes. I have crunched crickets underfoot, cursed at and then drowned iridescent beetles in soapsuds, pressure-washed sticky green aphids off the roses, and squished spotted cucumber beetles with my bare fingers. I have harvested white grubs from planting holes, and then flung the poor creatures into the street for the sun to fry them up like fatty bacon.

I have, oh my, oh my, I cringe when I write this…I have decapitated a grasshopper with a pair of super-sharp Okatsune snips. I don’t know what murderous impulse possessed me to wield the Japanese steel. Oh! To know that my hard-hearted face was the final image seen through those shiny black eyes! Poor little guy.

I am filled with regret. My eco-guilt is clear. I want to repent, to come clean, but I will always be a sinner. If you’ve read my Rant about red imported fire ants, you’ll know how cruel I can be when those six-legged miscreants move in. My advice to you, still,  is to kill them on sight. Is that a bit harsh? Perhaps.

I can do better. I know I can. Recently, I was at a local garden club in the middle of presenting an inspiring program titled “Lessons in Wow from the Gardens of Southwest England,” when an adventurous wolf spider strolled onto center stage.

I heard audible gasps from the gardeners, but there was no shrieking. 

After a brief discussion, the group elected to spare the spider, not smush him. One brave soul volunteered to capture and release the arachnid by sliding a piece of paper under his body, while simultaneously caging him under a plastic solo cup. That same brave soul volunteered to carry our new eight-legged friend out the side door and set him free. Unfortunately, he flinched. The red cup rim became a guillotine. Instead of finding freedom, the spider lost his head.

For the most part, gardeners are good people. We try to be kind, but sometimes we fall short. Sometimes we must be cruel to insects to care for our plants. It is one thing to spare a spider. It is another thing to watch caterpillars chomp through the crops you’ve worked so hard to grow.

How fortunate it is for you and me to be flying so high atop the food chain. We have both the tools and the knowledge we need to reign supreme in the battle against pesky bugs. A proactive gardener might use row covers early in the season. An attentive and patient gardener might pick unwanted guests off their plants by hand. If the pressure becomes too much to tolerate, a decisive gardener might pull the trigger on a targeted biopesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).

Bt is a natural bacterium found in soil that can target caterpillars, mosquitoes, midges, black flies, and crop-destroying beetles without directly killing beneficial insects. It poses little direct harm to people, plants, birds, fish, mammals, and most unrelated non-target insects. Cheap to buy and easy to use, Bt sprays have been available to U.S. gardeners since 1961. New gardeners may never have heard of it. Bt gets precious little shelf space and isn’t as well promoted as the products that promise a bug Armageddon.

Enhanced pest targeting is the overarching benefit of Bt products. In the U.S. and many other countries, Bt products and genetically modified seeds have increased crop yields while decreasing the need for widespread spraying of more hazardous pesticides, like neonics. Given the reality that we have limited agricultural space to grow the food and plant products needed to support vast populations of people, pets, and farm animals, Bt seems not to be an altogether bad thing…unless you’re one of those targeted pests or a beneficial predator that eats them.

Bt works, but it takes a while. It does not deliver an instant kill. Shortly after eating the bacteria, the crystalline toxins it produces punch microscopic holes through the insect’s stomach walls. The insect feels too bad to eat, so it starves. The downward spiral can take days. Seems like an awful way to die.

I would have to think long and hard before I’d choose to use Bt or any other pesticide. I don’t expect to get any brownie points for that. It is no sweat off my nose, because I’m a pleasure gardener who doesn’t mind a few nibbles. If I were feeding my family with what I grow, I might feel differently. And if I were dealing with invasive pests like the emerald ash borer or spotted lanternfly, I would be sorely tempted to bring out the big guns.

Today, a few ragged leaves pose zero threat to my garden. When I stand by my holey cannas, I pay no mind to the buckshot patterns of caterpillar damage. In fact, I’m thankful to be growing a new crop of the fuzzy brown Brazilian skipper butterflies that zoom around my garden like miniature jet planes.

I tolerate insect damage because I’m raising food for a community of benign creatures.  90% of our backyard birds feed their babies on insect protein. I try to look out for lacewings and ladybugs, too. I adore green anole lizards. I’m fascinated by all the creatures who wander through our small garden. I can’t imagine them not being here.

If 30 years of gardening has taught me anything, it is that when you leave things well enough alone, beneficial predators take care of your pests for free. When they don’t take care of business, it means I’m growing the wrong plant. I often tell new gardeners, “When in doubt, rip it out.” Don’t like crape myrtle bark scale? Chuck the crape myrtle. Don’t like cleaning caterpillar poo off the patio? Then move the coleus into the garden or try something else. Pull the plant instead of reaching for a spray. If you must intervene with pesticides, try not to bring a gun to a knife fight. Negotiate peace when you can. Be the kind of gardener who gives a damn.

For every one of us who cultivates benevolence, there’s a naive neighbor who thinks it is okay to fog mosquitoes because the salesman said it wouldn’t harm a bee. I want to shake them, make them think twice or thrice. I don’t want to have to use a phone app to hear birds sing or crickets chirp.

Surely we can do better, be kinder.

It won’t be easy. To be human is to kill things. To be humane, we must try not to.

Go out into your garden. Sit beside a spider. While she spins her silken web, listen.

If, after a while, you still can’t hear what she is saying, plant some dill.

Then, invite the neighbor kids over to watch butterflies grow.