It’s that time of year again. The umpteenth generation of house finches is leaving the nest, one by one, encouraged by their parents to fly the coop; it’s getting crowded in the Mexican tin lantern that is the couple’s poquito ranchito. It’s a wonderful thing to witness as each baby bird gains confidence and control and flies just that little bit further each day. Then one morning there they all are, lined up on the telephone wire that crosses my garden, chirping their achievement and sheer joy of being a small bird in a large world… with a garden full of insects to nourish their growth.
I’m a mama too, of a garden that I’ve fussed over, worried about, coaxed into life and constantly encouraged to be all that it can be. Naturally, when friends visit to admire and neighbors call out, “Hey, it’s lookin’ good!”, I do puff up with pride. Yet when they’re walking through with me, plying me with compliments, I can NOT stop myself from pointing out the plant in the wrong place, the shrub that failed to flower, the bulbs that didn’t show up, and all the many blemishes caused by unnamed infestations of leaf curl, mildew and grubs, oh my! At the moment, great piles of Brevicoryne brassicae, the cabbage aphid, are colonizing the brussel sprouts. Nothing seems to deter them. And I feel miserable looking at the chewed-up hosta leaves, shredded zinnia foliage and gnawed new growth on my rose bushes, thanks to grasshoppers, the scourge of July. Having not had this problem before, I’m told that the best control is to spray in the autumn with a poison that interferes with the grasshoppers’ reproductive systems.
I don’t think I resent that insect that much and will instead give thanks that we at least haven’t been cursed with an ant named Tapinoma magnum. There are many species of Tapinoma, but as you can infer from its name, it is the largest. It’s been making the news lately in northern Europe, including England, where it arrived from its native North Africa via the Mediterranean, piggy-backing on imported pot plants, and has survived thanks to the warming climate. These outsize ants can form colonies several acres in size, have thousands of queens and millions of workers who march in exceedingly long columns, up to one inch wide as they expand their empire. That’s a lot of ants, and needless to say they have successfully wiped-out native ant species, hence are considered a threat to biodiversity.
Lasius niger, the common black garden ant is widely dispersed, and in gardens finds good nesting beneath stone paths where it’s generally cool and damp; the workers throw up mini-sand dunes as they excavate. Diatomaceous earth, a silica rich deposit of fossilized diatoms, dusted around the nest is the best control I know that is also good in greenhouses and around the house should the need arise. As ants scurry in and out, they carry the dust into the nest and contact quickly kills the colony. But as with many things, it took me a moment to learn about this control and another more outré method.
When I moved to Texas nearly 30 years ago and began gardening, my British horticulture education gave me a solid foundation to build on; even many of the garden pests were familiar. However, Roger, our building contractor, gave me my first most useful American horticulture lesson, if not the most painful teaching moment: We were standing in what was to become the back garden, a plot of land covered in rough grasses and rocks. There was a terrible smell, which we later found, came from a dead possum in the old wood pile. Then, something started tickling my toes. Roger yelled “MOVE. FAST!!” and started swiping at my legs. “FIRE ANTS.” They have, I learned the hard way, a venomous bite. Hundreds of red welts on my legs and between my toes tormented me for days. To this day, I keep a wary eye out, but so far so good. Roger later told me that only thing he knew that would destroy a red ant nest was human urine… freshly applied… if you get my drift. My husband thought this was hysterical, I was less impressed with this unconventional pest control technique. But it worked. And that, in the end, is what matters, especially since it’s organic.
Ethne Clarke, 2025
To see all 158 of Joris Hoefnagel’s intricate calligraphic illuminations go to https://artvee.com/books/the-model-book-of-calligraphy-mira-calligraphiae-monumenta/
Photos of the beautifully detailed mosaics discovered at a site on Via Panisperna in Rome can be seen at https://tinyurl.com/mrysebyy