It's January! I'm waiting for it to get really cold, like negative numbers cold. Yes, I love winter and I'm one of the crazy people that actually enjoys shoveling snow. However, I'm watching the thermometer because it makes a big impact on the garden.
In January and February of 2009 we had a number of nights dip into the negative digits. As a result, we experienced lower populations of some damaging insects. The cool wet spring made fungus flourish. Yet, we saw dramatic decreases in the populations of bagworms, for example. I haven't spotted them on trees that last year were covered in little bundles of brown needles about as big as your thumb. There was also a decrease in Japanese beetles. Maybe not quite so dramatic as the bagworms, but there were less of them around than the year before. I only plucked a handful or two off the roses.
So, bundle up! Dig out that alpaca sweater your mother brought you from Bolivia and the wool socks. A little shivering now can pay big dividends this spring.
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I will tolerat almost anything for the promise of fewer Japanese beetles. Chasing them off the zinnias or the brugmansia is not my favorite way to spend a summer afternoon.
ReplyDeleteI think all the beetle left your yard and headed over to mine! funny how they decimated one rose bush and left the next door neighbor alone. Doesn't matter much now though, the rabbit just ate it down to the ground yesterday - 1/9. it was a once blooming old rose too...
ReplyDeleteI am very proud of myself for caging the shrubs the rabbits like best before they got at them this year. I've never had a lot of Japanese beetles for some reason. They do like the roses best, of course.
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