.












Green Lacewing




Did you know that male mosquitos are pollinators and never bite people?


Did you know that the larva of Ladybugs look like alligators?


Did you know that most of the "bugs" in our gardens are either harmless or beneficial in one way or another for us?



So here is a list of “bugs” to find photos of on the internet so you’ll feel more comfortable with
them, possibly appreciate and respect them, and hopefully won’t kill them. Included are some
things they eat that make them helpful to us.













     

     

      

  



Assassin Bug:eats flies, leafhoppers, Japanese beetles, tomato hornworms

Beneficial Nematodes: eat cutworms, billbugs, and especially Japanese beetle larvae

Braconid Wasps: eat tomato hornworms, armyworms, cabbageworms, codling moths, gypsy
                                                                                                                                            moths
Brown Lacewing: eats aphids, mealybugs, scale insect nymphs


Damsel Bugs: eat aphids, small caterpillars, thrips, leafhoppers


Damselflies: eat many kinds of bugs plus aphids off of plants

Dragonflies: eat mosquitos, flies


Green Lacewing: eat aphids, other soft-bodies insects

Ground Beetles: eat cutworms, slugs, snails, gypsy moth larvae, root maggots

Ladybird Beetles (a.k.a. Ladybugs): eat aphids, scale insects, thrips, mealybugs, mites

Rove Beetles: eat mites, aphids, springtails, nematodes, fly eggs, fly maggots

Tachinid Flies: eat caterpillars, beetles, sawflies, borers, green stinkbugs

Tiger Beetles: eat ants, flies, aphids, grasshoppers


Whitefly Predators: eat whiteflies



To know them is to love, or at least appreciate, what they do for us.

​ENVIRONMENTAL

INFO.

YOU CAN USE

by Judith Gratz, Environmental Educator

This column has put emphasis on using native plants in our gardens. There is, however, a non-native but naturalized plant that can be especially beneficial in our lawns. It’s White Clover. To
understand the benefit of White Clover, one needs to look at the process called “nitrogen fixing” in the soil. Although there is a lot of nitrogen gas in the air, (about 80% of our air), it is not usable by most organisms.

Legumes, such as peas, beans, and clover, form a symbiotic
relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots, called Rhizobium, which live in structures called root nodules. In this relationship, the bacteria convert nitrogen gas from the air
into ammonia, which the plant can use, and the plant provides carbohydrates to the bacteria.

These are called nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The process is more complicated than that, but the part described here is the aspect of the nitrogen cycle that makes nitrogen available to plants. The nitrogen gets into herbivores and humans when they eat plants. When carnivores eat the herbivores they, too, acquire nitrogen.

So that demands the question: Why would so-called landscapers kill the White Clover, which is providing a free service, and charge us to have nitrogen put into our lawns?

The answer is obvious.



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cheltenham chamber of citizens