Sometimes when we see insects on our plants the response should be…nothing. There is no hard and fast rule for when to treat, but it’s helpful to know that we don’t always have to step in with a remedy. Sometimes treatment isn’t necessary, sometimes what we do doesn’t work anyway, and sometimes we are interfering with nature’s way of keeping things in balance. (I wanted to spell it interfearing because we are frequently responding out of fear of what might happen if we don’t kill the insects we see.)
Sometimes treating does more harm than good. There is no easy rule of thumb because these decisions need to be made on a plant-by-plant and insect-by-insect basis.
Gardening is just like everything else in life…it’s all more complicated and interconnected than we might like it to be.
When I looked closely at the flowers on my umbrella-leaf magnolia I saw that they were covered in tiny black bugs. These insects didn’t seem to be doing any harm, so I let them be. The worst that happened is that this year all the photos of my magnolia flowers show tiny black specks on the blooms. Better to treat this insect infestation with Photoshop instead of insecticides.
