TheMondayGarden.com

Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
January 19, 2003, issue no. 43

This is my bedroom palm. I’m not particularly palm-abled, but I know to give palms a weekly shower. Palms need the bath for several reasons including the houseplant’s winter bane, spider mites.

Spider mites like hot and dry.

TheMondayGarden.com, Eco-gardening at its best

June 25, 2005, Issue 210

SUMMARY: There is no ethical justification for the use of pesticides, "natural" or otherwise, to make pretty flowers or velvety lawns. Further, pesticides, long-term, are not effective insect controls. Instead, learn good cultural practices, and foster nature's defense which include predator bugs.

A reader of TheMondayGarden.com wrote "I just recently had a orchid house built. Could you advise me how to get rid of the mealy bugs and scale? Is there a automatic system that can take care of this and what chemical do I use to get this under control?"

Picture: Ladybug on patrol at Southfield Park, Stamford CT June 2006.

Dear Reader: I can see that you're learning, like the rest of us, and I hope this will help you protect your health and that of your children, pets, and plants:

I don't use chemicals to kill plant bugs and urge others to refrain from doing so as well. Bugs are all-natural (albeit sometimes not native) and fully bio-degradable, never cause cancer, and are seldom poisonous. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for pesticides ("cides" to readers of TheMondayGarden.com).

The 'cides are dangerous because (1) they kill stuff, (2) they are not fully tested to make sure that they only kill what they are intended to kill, and (3) what testing is done assumes that the user is perfectly following an unrealistic set of directions under ideal working conditions.