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Natural Pest Management Pest Management Steps Natural Pest Remedies Beneficial Insects Beneficial Bats & Birds Resources 
Poppy Design, WA | ©1996 Bruce Heinemann | The Art of Nature® Eco-Tips Attracting Wildlife Backyard Birding Bats Butterfly Gardening Composting & Mulch Creating Naturescapes Eco-Cleaning Holiday Eco-Tips Natural Pest Management Organic Gardening Wildlife First Aid
Americans spend over $1 billion and apply over 70 million pounds of pesticides to suburban lawns each year, making storm-water runoff a leading source of water pollution.
Pesticides:
kill thousands of beneficial insects, including honeybees, wasps, and ladybugs, for every insect that they attempt to control, and destroy the balance of nature. destroy the environment and collect in the tissues of animals and humans, causing disease and death. are especially harmful to children. Children absorb more pesticides relative to their body weight and are unable to detoxify from the chemicals as their organs are still developing. Each year more than 43,000 children under age six are exposed to concentrations of pesticides high enough to cause cancer, respiratory illness, and central nervous system damage.
Common pesticides, like Dursban, that are use to treat lawns and ornamental plants, are nervous system poisons and exposure can cause headaches, aching joints, nausea, dizziness, disorientation, and inability to concentrate.
A study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that:
children whose yards were treated with herbicides and insecticides had four times the risk of a certain cancer-soft-tissue-sarcoma. Fetuses exposed to home pest strips during the final three months of pregnancy had three times the normal rate of leukemia and children exposed to them after birth had twice the normal rate. Many other common pesticides can affect the immune system and lead to problems with allergies and asthma and have been linked to increased occurrence of leukemia, brain cancer, and soft tissue sarcoma.
You can make the difference by paying for knowledge, not pesticides.
Eliminate pesticide use in your home, yard, schools and parks and practice natural pest management. Natural pest management utilizes simple, environmental safe, and effective practices to control pests while maintaining the diversity and balance of the ecosystem.
Try these natural pest management practices in the following order until your problem is under control:
A natural yard full of diverse plant and animal species is the best way to avoid pest problems. Replace your high maintenance lawn and conventional landscape with a low-maintenance, water-wise, naturescape! 3. Attract natural predators. Birds, bats and beneficial bugs can provide you with natural, safe, and effective pest management. Go to attracting wildlife to see how to attract birds and bats. Go to beneficial insects to see how to attract good bugs! 4. Observation. Check your garden regularly for pest problems Identify the problem What type of bug is it? Many bugs are beneficial and identification is critical for determining the right treatment5. Physical removal.
Most insect pests and diseases concentrate on new plant growth and can be removed simply by hand removing insects or pruning off affected areas Dispose of diseased plant parts in plastic bags to reduce contamination of other plants 6. Use natural remedies. Treat only the affected area with natural remedies. Oil Spray for Insect Control
Mix 1 tablespoon of mild dishwashing liquid or baby shampoo with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil in a quart of water Spray every 5-7 days as needed Water plants the day before you spray Do not use on plants with hairy leaves, those with very thin waxy coverings on the leaves, or orchids For fungus control add 2 tablespoons of baking soda to the above mixture Spray both sides of the leaves thoroughly at the first sign of disease
Insect Repellent for Vegetables
Mix 1 tablespoon of liquid hand soap with 1/4 teaspoon of powdered cayenne pepper, onion powder and garlic powder in a spray bottle and fill with water. Spray on infected plants Ants
Mix 1/8 teaspoon Boric Acid powder with 1/2 teaspoon honey for sugar ants (use fish oil or grease for grease ants) and in a soda bottle cap or similar container Place on path where ants are seen and away from children and pets Discard after ants have fed Ticks/fleas
Add 1/2 cup fresh or dried rosemary to 1 quart of boiling water Boil for 20 minutes, strain and allow solution to cool Wash and dry pet thoroughly, then apply rosemary solution with a spray bottle or sponge Allow pet to air dry Mosquitoes
Avoid dusk and dawn when mosquitoes are most active Try rubbing dryer fabric softener sheets on your skin Empty containers of standing water Put a few drops of olive or corn oil on the surface of small water containers Rodents
Keep pet bowls inside Store pet food and birdseed inside in covered containers Only put out enough birdseed in the morning that birds will eat in the day Weeds & Grass Killer
Spray weeds or grass with a solution of 25% vinegar and 75% water This is most effective when no rain is expected for at least 2 to 3 days after spraying. 99% of the insects in your yard and garden are beneficial -like parasitic wasps that control more than two hundred kinds of pests - and help keep the balance of nature.
One ladybug eats up to 100 aphids a day.
Some of the good bugs: Lady Bug Assassin Bug Green Lacewing Earwig Syrphid Fly Big-eyed Bug Parasitic Wasps Praying Mantis Minute Pirate BugsPesticides kill thousands of beneficial insects, including honeybees, wasps, ladybugs and butterflies, for every one that they attempt to control - and destroy the balance of nature.
Think spraying pesticides for mosquitoes helps? Think again… Dragonflies are nature’s mosquito control, consuming millions of mosquitoes. When you spray for mosquitoes you also kill dragonflies (and many other beneficial insects). Since the life cycle of a mosquito is just a few weeks and a dragonfly’s is almost a year, you have just made your mosquito problem a whole lot worse. The mosquitoes will be back in a couple of weeks, but this time the dragonflies won’t for another year - and neither will the butterflies.
1/3 of all food we eat is the result of beneficial pollinator insects, like bees and butterflies, visiting and pollinating a flower.
The top pollinators: Bees Flies Bats Wasps Beetles Butterflies As a result of pesticides and loss of native habitat, wild honeybees are almost extinct and 1/4 of all commercial beehives have been lost in the last 5 years.
You can make the difference and have a healthy, pesticide free yard by planting as many native plant species as possible and encouraging beneficial insects like ladybugs and wasps to control pests.
Plant the following plants to attract these beneficial insects:
For: Lacewings Ladybugs Minute Pirate Bugs Plant: Yarrow Butterfly Weed CarawayDill Coriander Alfalfa
Cosmos Marigold Spearmint
Fennel Tansy Goldenrod
Create brush piles and leave parts of your garden untrimmed during the fall and winter so beneficial insects have a place to nest.
Research has shown that this mixture can increase the population of beneficial ladybugs by over 200% in just two days!
Mix 5 ounces of sugar water with 1 quart of water Apply mixture with a watering can or sprayer to plants where aphids and other pests are a problem By not using pesticides you will make your yard safer for people and pets, and protect valuable pollinating insects, birds and other wildlife.
Birds and bats eat millions of insects every day. Here are some of the top insect eaters:
Purple Martin Red-Eyed Vireo Downy Woodpecker Chipping Sparrow Yelllow Warbler Common Nighthawk Eastern Phoebe Baltimore Oriole House WrenGo to backyard birding and bats to learn how to attract birds and bats to your yard.
For more information on natural pest control read Using Beneficial Insects, by Rhonda Massingham Hart (1991, Storey Books).
Go to schoolipm.ifas.ufl.edu/ to visit the National School Integrated Pest Management website.
Go to www.pta.org/programs/envlibr.htm for the National PTA’s Environmental Resource Library.
Go to www.beyondpesticides.org for more information on living without pesticides.
