It’s a jungle out there with scary creatures if you’re a plant

Echoing through the online world are these words: “What’s eating my plant?” And with the question is usually an image of a leaf riddled with holes, a close-up of a seedling felled like a giant redwood, or tiny stems brutally severed.

There’s no shortage of culprits. Rabbits especially are a menace and the only thing that truly works is a fence around the yard or wire mesh around the plants. It needs to be a couple of feet high and turned outwards at the base in an L shape or buried a few inches. It won’t stop squirrels or chipmunks unless it covers the whole bed. There are countless other suggestions online, but none are guaranteed. Most popular recommendations are blood-meal, soaps, or other pungent things. Animals don’t like strange odours, but they adapt, and what may appear to work for a while doesn’t always last.

The blood-meal can be effective and some swear by it, however, like other deterrents it must be repeated after rain, and too much spread around will upset the nutrient balance in the soil and encourage leafy growth at the expense of flowers or fruit. There are a couple of commercial products, Bobbex and Plantskydd, used for winter protection of shrubs and trees from deer, are a deterrent elsewhere in the garden, although they shouldn’t be sprayed on vegetables. One suggestion to deter critters is to spread human hair about. I can tell, you, I’ve been losing hair in the garden for years without any effect.

Other than damage by chomping animals, most damage goes on at the level where Rick Moranis shrunk the kids. Sometimes evidence of the culprit is obvious, slimy trails left by slugs, or clusters of aphids clinging to new growth — blast aphids off with a hose daily until they’re gone.

From flea beetles to lily beetles and cut worms to earwigs, identifying the specific insect that’s causing damage is key. Holes in leaves will only tell you one that a pest has visited. Like no one in the office will admit to taking the last donut, by the time you spot the damage the pest may well have dined and dashed.

Much damage occurs overnight and that’s the time to observe. You may need to patrol the garden after dark with a flashlight, but let your neighbours know if they’re the suspicious type or you might find yourself in the back of a police cruiser and ranting about bugs won’t get you out.

Once you have identified the pest, you can determine the best means to deal with it, either with a barrier of some form or an insecticidal soap spray. These sprays must contact the insect pest. Please note, they don’t work by blanket spraying the garden. There are far more good bugs than bad ones. When predator insects are wiped out, the bug you’re trying to eliminate thrives. And you’ll be harming valuable pollinators, including bees and butterflies.

Certainly, there are instances where insects will ravage a crop, and that is disappointing, but often the damage is limited or short term, like with the four-lined plant bug. Right now, leaf miners have been busy on my Swiss chard, a problem that can’t be resolved with any spray as they’re within the leaf. It’s visually unattractive, but the chard will soon outgrow the damage and I’ll remove the affected leaves. Growing plants that attract predatory insects on or near the vegetable garden will be helpful, and it’s just as important to know the beneficial insects as well as the baddies.

Are we out of batteries for the flashlight again?

Getting High With Plants

Away from marketing, trends begin simply because people decide that something is a great thing to do. In the world of plants and gardens, there are two that are prominent, and they are both connected to that unfortunately branded group, millennials, that is, those born in the years roughly spanning 1981 to 1996.

By all reports, this group is into plants and gardens in two specific ways — or both. One is the surge in backyard vegetable gardens, simply because they like to feed their young families with their own healthy produce. Wait, haven’t Generation X and baby boomers been doing that for ages? Yes, but the latter are tapering off a little as they reach the age when bodies are creaking as much as an old wheelbarrow. Many of that group are now moving into apartments and condos, leaving their gardens behind.

It’s in those new high-rises that are springing up like — okay, weeds — where the other trend is taking place. That is the growing of houseplants, particularly succulents. Succulents are especially popular because they’re easy to take care of. Little do these people know they’re also the gateway to larger, more exotic houseplants.

Next thing you know, these folks will be wanting to grow plants on their terraces and balconies. I can see it now — small shrubs, trees even, with masses of vines climbing and cascading over their multi-story building, just like at Bosco Verticale, a pair of residential towers in Milan, Italy. Instead of cold steel and glass, greenery flows over the whole exterior surface of the buildings.

But why not here? Sure, Milan has an enviable climate, but we could start with roof gardens. Now I don’t mean green roofs covered mainly in hardy ground covers. They’re fine and have their purpose, but I’m suggesting more. Roofs on these buildings are wasted space when they could be productive. There’s plenty of room for raised beds where the building occupants can grow their fruits and vegetables, or ornamental plants if they wish, maybe even a cutting garden, and plants for pollinators, of course.

But what about a real garden? This isn’t a new concept, and many have been installed. Some years ago in London, England, I ate at a restaurant located on the roof of a six-storey building that looked out on a beautifully landscaped garden. The garden held over seventy mature trees, including oak. It even had a stream and a pond complete with wandering flamingoes. Known as the Derry and Toms Roof Gardens, it was on the roof of the former department store by that name which opened in 1933, when the gardens were first installed.

That may be ambitious, but why not? We’re losing green space, not only because of suburban sprawl, but in our uptowns and downtowns where the word is intensification. In order for this to take place, many new building high-rises are built on land that previously held houses. Gardens at ground level vanished along with the homes. “Paved paradise” anyone?

There is a need for greenery, for people to be able to stay in touch with the natural world, evidenced by the trends above, and countless studies have shown the benefits. It reveals an inherent need to stay connected. For those older baby-boomers living in the same buildings, there’s nothing many would like better than to again have a garden they can tend. They’d be lining up to buy or rent, so what about it, planners, architects, builders, and developers? You can do it.