This is the time of year that we become aware of many flying insects that are buzzing around our yard and garden. Wasps are among the least appreciated and I don't mean that to be funny. Like snakes and bats, they suffer a lot of bad press but actually do a lot of good.
In the garden wasps are essential pollinators during the critically important early half of the gardening season. The Queen wasp is busy laying eggs, which hatch into larva and need to be fed. The worker wasps get busy collecting pollen and nectar (just as honey bees do), return to the wasp nest to feed their young and in so doing pollinate a lot of flowers in the garden and in the wild. The larva, meantime, produce a sticky, sweet liquid that the workers feed on.
When the Queen stops laying eggs, the remaining larva mature into wasps and stop producing the sticky substance from which the adults wasps derive much of their sustenance. It is precisely at that time that the adults forage for sweet stuff in our gardens, like rotting apples and the left over coke on your patio table.
Wasps can easily be controlled using a wasp trap. Be sure to use ½ naturally sweet fruit juice and ½ water for best results. And the 'faux' wasp nests that have entered the market in recent years work well as wasps are territorial. They do not like to compete for real estate. If you hang one over your patio they will move elsewhere looking for a place to build, like in the eave of your home over the front door.
Slugs and snails have a huge appetite for many [if not 'most'] of the plants in your garden. They especially like hostas. You can trap them with a Slug Saloon [see demo in this segment] or poison them with one of the new slug/snail baits that are pet and environment friendly. Follow the directions carefully.
And Japanese beetles seem to be everywhere right now up to Ottawa and Montreal (zone 4). Thank global warming as we did not have to deal with them until recent years. But then, most Canadians had not seen a possum either, to control Japanese beetles use a sex trap (pheromone) that you will purchase from a garden retailer. Be sure to follow the directions and empty it regularly to help keep them under control. By the way, they seem to love roses best of all!
