Safeguarding our garden sanctuaries

Many of those who enjoy building and nurturing gardens consider them sanctuaries and spaces that protect our mental and physical health, so how can we best protect them? 

Anyone who’s put their energy into growing things is likely familiar with seeing their garden come under siege from any number of pests, and this can be devastating. Nurturing this space requires a consistent energy and love, and seeing that disrupted is unsettling at best. To ensure comprehensive protection, we can come at the issue from multiple angles, or holistically, much like is asked for our own health and well-being. When thinking of how to go about this, we can consider what we do and don’t want to invite in. This will allow us to protect our garden sanctuaries without costly and toxic chemical inputs. 

Daffodils, one of the plants that can repel pests and can be planted around trees or garden edges.

The first step is repelling pests that can be. To do this, we can include plants in our landscape that have an uncanny ability to keep those costly predators at bay, and we call these….you guessed it repellers. When looking to pick a repeller, look no farther than the group of plants referred to as Alliums. This group includes a number of familiar plants including onions, garlic, and chives, but perhaps the best option are daffodils. These plants repel garden pests by confusing them and masking the scent of the plants that they seek. Envision chopping an onion and how the strong scent can bring tears to our eyes. That is due to some pretty potent compounds that put off a strong odor and strong chemical signals. We can capture that same effect in our gardens. By surrounding the trunk of our favorite fruit tree or surrounding an entire garden plot with these plants we can do a lot to keep harmful visitors from getting to the plants we’ve worked so hard to nurture. Aromatic bulbs keep things from coming in under the soil and fragrant leaves and flowers confuse surface-bound pests. This is perhaps the best thing we can do to begin ensuring the safety of our botanical allies.

The second step which is no less important is attracting. We don’t want to attract the pests themselves as we are probably already doing that by planting nutrient dense crops. Instead, we want to attract their predators. There’s a vast variety of harmful critters that can get at our hard work so we want to make sure to be comprehensive here as well. Planting Umbels, plants in the carrot family, we can attract parasitic wasps that lay their eggs in many of the harmful insect pests that will visit our gardens. Dill is perhaps the most effective of these plants, but carrots, fennel, and yarrow will serve the same purpose. These plants all have large clusters of flowers that resemble umbrellas and they are the favorite stomping grounds for these parasitic wasps. For anyone concerned about the prospect of attracting wasps to their gardens, have no fear, these guys won’t be a nuisance or danger to people.

Umbels attract those that feed on pests that can disrupt our garden sanctuaries

The other main thing to attract are toads, frogs and lizards. These larger predators will eat vast quantities of insects but more importantly, they will help you keep snails and slugs at bay. To attract these friends, make sure to include rocks and water in your landscape providing plenty of places for these creatures to stay cool during the day. 

To ensure the safety of the nutrient rich and beautiful plants, in our sanctuary,vigilance and starting early are vital. Make room in your landscape for plants of all kinds. Variety and genetic diversity lead to healthy outcomes in the plant world just as they do in the human and animal worlds. The healthier and more secure your plants are, the more they will produce so don’t think of this as sacrificing space that could be used to produce food. Once you achieve this balance, you will find that the more you offer, the more you will reap in return.