Flowerdew - Simple Green Pest and Disease Control

A fruit cage makes more difference than all other pest and disease controls put together

Sometimes you have no choice but to tackle the pests. In some countries, there are laws demanding you report or treat certain pests or diseases, that you must control others and you are forbidden to import or grow some plants because these may encourage problems. For example, in the UK you must report Colorado beetles (yellow ladybugs scoffing your potatoes), prune out and burn plum branches with silver leaf disease, and you may not plant Laxtons Superb pear, as it is prone to fireblighta widespread fungal disease. In some U.S. states, berberis was banned as it was thought to carry wheat rust, and blackcurrants are banned in others.

One reason why so much spraying was done in the past was because of a fear that problems would get worse and would spread to everything else. Although very few pests, such as slugs or rabbits, may attack almost anything, most are very specific about their diet and seldom move to unrelated plants. Even fewer diseases spread widely as they are often specific to certain plants. However, you can understand the fear; some years everything starts to get mildew or rust, but thats because the season favors themhollyhock rust does not move to leeks, its just that both suffer their own version at the same time. Better prediction of when diseases such as potato blight are probable, for example in warm moist weather, at least allows a reduction of controls at less risky times.

Because common pests and diseases often attack popular plants, one way to avoid many of them is to grow the rare and unusual rather than the commonplace. There are far more pests and diseases for radishes, roses, and rhododendrons than for aronia, arbutus, and artichokes.

If you cast your eyes around almost any flower garden, at first glance all usually appears well. Look closer, though, and you will find that almost every plant has some minor damage, but overall these minor defects do not seriously impact their appearance or yields. Although youre not deliberately exerting much control, inadvertently you have done so by creating a rich diversity of plantsfar more variety of flowering plants than youd find in the same area in untrampled nature. With these plants supporting a diversity of life, you get much more passive control. Basically, although pests are there, there are also many things looking for lunch who control them for you.

So, simply because of the wide range of ornamentals we grow and the diversity of wildlife attracted to them, these are inherently easier to keep clean than the vegetables and fruits. Likewise, few diseases infect them, usually affecting but one or two, because so many vegetables and fruits are closely related they may suffer more as diseases and pests spread among them rather easily. However, even so, seldom does one reach epidemic proportions.