Earwigs? No problem!
Earwigs are a creepy nuisance at
times, like when they crawl out of freshly picked flowers or lettuce heads, but
they are not a pest. They actually clean
up fungal infections on plants.
A typical earwig. Credit: animal.discovery.com
For
several years in this town, I found that one could not grow a hollyhock to
bloom without it becoming covered with an ugly rust by the time it
bloomed. I would cut them down when they
got ugly and let them re-grow to bloom later in the summer, when the rust is
not so prevalent.
But one year, I didn’t see any rust on
my hollyhocks, and so didn’t cut them down.
As they were blooming, I was lying on the lawn one day, looking up at
them, and noticed that the leaves were full of tiny holes in the same pattern
as the rust would make, and so was a butterfly bush. That evening, I noticed earwigs climbing the
butterfly bush as it got dark, and put two and two together; the earwigs were
eating the rust before it made spores and became colorful.
I had previously noticed that I had a
great many earwigs in my gardens and thought about various strategies for
getting rid of them, though I noticed no damage that I could attribute to
them. Now I realized that they were
actually useful, and stopped worrying about them.
In Landscape Management at RCC, our
teacher pointed out that plant diseases like rust make typical damage patterns
that differ from those caused by plant-eating pests. After several years of observing such damage,
I was able to see the difference right away between pest damage and fungal
damage cleaned up by earwigs. Since
then, I have noticed earwig work on other plants with other fungi.
Earwigs are just one of the many beneficial
insects that are encouraged by leaf mulch.
Many predators of plant pests live under mulch and rocks, along with
pests that they may or may not eat, like snails, slugs, grubs, and grasshoppers.
A variety of soldier beetle common in Southern Oregon. Their color patterns vary widely.
Credit: www.marinrose.org
Soldier
beetles eat aphids in April and May and then lay their eggs in mulch-covered
soil. Their velvety black larvae crawl under
the mulch for the rest of the year, eating a great many insect eggs and baby
bugs. You will rarely if ever see the
larvae; they are exceedingly shy. It’s
hard to even find photos of them.
A ground beetle typical to Southern Oregon. Some are iridescent; some have big heads.
Credit: www.naturephoto-cz.com
Ground
beetles, spiders and centipedes also hunt beneath the mulch. Leaves aren’t the only mulch they like, but
they are probably the best, apart from a tendency to be eaten up by worms, pill
bugs, millipedes and earwigs. Coarse
bark mulch can keep the soil covered when the soft leaves are eaten up. Keep your soil predators happy with good
mulch, and you will have few pest problems.
7/6/2013. Published on Yahoo Voices and landscape-supervisor.blogspot.com.
Join Garden Grants Pass in gardening classes at Greenwood
and Schroeder Dog Parks.
Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener 541-955-9040 rycke@gardener.com
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