Publish - July 24, 1999

A couple of things have happened recently that I must admit made me a little sad. It’s not that anyone did anything to me personally, it’s just that on two occasions I know that chemicals were sprayed without knowledge of what the problem was.

I was asked by a lawn spray company to come out and check some viburnums that had been having problems over the past few months. When he called to see if I could come out and look at the shrubs he told me that he had already sprayed the shrubs with a few different insecticides and fungicides. From talking to him I suspected that the problem was due to the drought last year and the most recent one this past winter and spring. I met him out at the site and the viburnum were dieing out in patches. There would be two to three viburnum together that were just slowly dieing. The irrigation was turned on and it was evident that the shrubs that were dieing weren’t receiving enough water. They also mentioned that some of the other viburnum that hadn’t been doing well were coming back. I told them that now that we were getting rain again that made sense that the others were improving. I thought it was sad though, that when the viburnum started doing poorly insecticides and fungicides were sprayed without knowing for sure what the problem or cause was.

The second incident happened just last week when I was at a discount store over lunch. I was in the garden section looking for blood meal when I heard a couple asking the employee what they should spray on their plant. They said that they didn’t know what the pest was so the employee was showing them the Malathion, diazinon and dursban. I am probably preaching to the choir since all of you who read my article know that you can bring bugs or leaves in for ID but I thought it was so sad that when in doubt they were going for the harsh chemicals. If I don’t know for sure what the problem is I would spray a soap and oil spray but that is all I would try.

I am not a fan of harsh chemicals because I know the effects they can have on us (humans) as well as the environment. I do the pesticide training for the county so I know all about chronic and acute effects. Did you know that in the U.S., lawns occupy more land than any single crop, including wheat and corn, and that homeowners use 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre than farmers do!

I guess my main point for this entire article is; If we all use chemicals wisely (using spot treatments of the least toxic chemical) then this will be a much nicer place to live for everybody and everything.

Now, I don’t want everyone to get to depressed because just last week a gentleman came in our office with the largest looking mosquito type bug I had ever seen. This bug had large eyes, a very noticeable beak, long legs and big wings. Our Master Gardener, Jim V., was helping him try to figure out what that creature was. He said that he had killed one last year but since he found another one he wanted to find out if it was good or bad. If it is good he didn’t want to kill them anymore. The gentleman said that the bug was very aggressive towards him when he was trying to kill it. After looking through some of our books, Jim found it and identified it as a robber fly. The robber fly is a beneficial insect because the adults are predaceous and attack a variety of insects including wasps, bees, dragonflies, grasshoppers and other flies. They often attack an insect as large or larger than themselves. The good news is, now that he knows its a beneficial that gentleman will no longer kill a robber fly.