A Different Approach to Insect Control

There are many out of the box insect controls. This atricle tells of some of the best low cost and envirementally friendly ways of controlling pest insects. Put up a bat box. A single bat can eat 1000 or more mosquitoes in asingle night. Put up bird boxes. Baby birds need to be feed insects. They can't digest grain. Thus an increase in birds will mean a decrese in the insect population. Create a habitat for lizards. Bring them home if you seeone and release it near a rock wall. When on a walk in the fall, if you see a praying mantis nest, bring it home and place in on one of your shrubs. It is a great benificial insect. Bring home frogs and toads if your landscape has a suitable place for these critters. They can eat countless bugs in a day. Catch a skunk that is a a friends home in a have a heart trap. Place a blanket over the trap and slowly bring home the skunk in the back of your truck and release it near your property. These smelling old timers love grubs and cutworms. Don't kill your snakes. These slithering reptiles eat mice, bugs, and beetles. Yes, the gardeners worst pest. Do you hate Japanese Beetles? Give them away. Always remember to give away your beetles. Never place a beetle trap on your own property unless all residents of your area are attempting to control beetles. The reason is that you will most likly attract more beetles to your landscape than you destroy. If you are trap minded the best idea is to give them away. Yes, It is better to give than to receive. This old motto is even good for Japanese beetles. Japanese Beetles can be controlled with traps that lore the beetle with food and sex attractants. These are generally a bag trap that one hangs 4-5 feet off the ground. It is never a good idea to place them near your plants that they will eat. So I simply suggest give them to your neighbor at Christmas!!! If you want, hang the trap on open space area trees near your property. Thus the beetles will be dirtected away from your property. What we do on the farm is we hang the trap on branches of a tree that overhangs our pond and open up the bottom. The little critters fall into the pound and our fish clean them up. What a way to recycle and not have to empty the traps. Some of the effected popular flowers and trees favored by the beetles are: annual asters astilbe canna cosmos daylilly delphinium hollyhoch iris marigold peony roses zinnia Linden trees purple plums When you sign up on our web site to our mailing list, you will receive more of our unusual gardening and landscape tips along with many free tree and plant offerings from our surpluses that we have. Go to our web site at http://www.seedlingsrus.com This is a copy of my most recent email newsletter. This was an overwhelming success. *********************************************************** January 2006 The Early Bird Gets the Worm---Don't Delay Free Tree Day Jan. 28th is a Free Higan Weeping Cherry Tree Day Greetings! January 28, 2006 is free Weeping Higan Cherry Tree Day.....All members of our email club can receive a free Higan Weeping Cherry when you bring your pickup to our 5275 West Swamp Rd. Fountainville Pa. location. These trees are 10-12' tall and in 24" baskets. These trees must be picked up on the 28th, before 5pm. sorry, no rain checks. There is a limit of one per family and you must have been a member on or before January 27, 2006 of our email club. Sincerely, Bill Hirst Free Tree Day Jan. 28th, 2006 is Free Tree Day 5275 W. Swamp Rd. Fountainville, Pennsylvania 18923 January 28, 2006 8:00AM-5:00PM Reasons to Come to this Event We are selling 150 acres of our nursery and we must liquidate many trees and plants. Some of of plants are in quantities that would supply us for many years of sales. But we can't move that number of trees. Thus they will be either sold at a discount, destroyed, or given away. I like the last option. Thus if you bring your pickup to the farm today, Saturday the 28th, we will give away 1 free Higan Weeping cherry to each email newsletter subscriber to Highland Hill Farm that picks up the tree by 5PM. Sorry you must be have be signed up by Jan. 27th, to qualify. There are no rain checks. These trees are in 24 and 28 inch baskets and are app. 10-14' tall. We will help load them in your pickup. We have a total of 75 trees ready to give away while the supply lasts. All other trees and plants are 20% off today. Driving Directions to the Farm Highland Hill Farm 5275 W. Swamp Rd. Rt. 313 Fountainville, Pennsylvania 18923 myhirst@yahoo.com http://www.seedlingsrus.com We will have other free tree offerings each month. So keep in touch. ************************************************************** Within 15 minutes of this email being sent people started to arrive to make selections. We would have had no customers on this day. Yet we sold enough other stock to make this offering possible. We gave away 52 trees and this was even covered by the press showing up and giving us exposure in local papers.