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My experience with gardening is that gardeners can be pretty annoying. Not the normal ones. The normal ones make everything look nice. They blow the leaves, kill the weeds, and use plenty of water so everything looks green.
My first gardener was pretty normal in that sense, but I didn’t love him so I switched to someone my arborist recommended. Ingrid was a student in a horticulture class he taught at Foothill and he thought highly of her. Indeed Ingrid was really kind, thoughtful, and knowledgeable. But she also brought a new set of ideas. She did not want to blow the leaves. She would rake them, but still she preferred to leave them to cover the ground. Ingrid did not want to use a lot of water. And she flat out refused to use any Roundup to kill the weeds. She would pull out the weeds, but she was a hard no on the chemicals.
This took some getting used to. Ingrid was patient but persistent, and to be fair, my arborist had said many of the same things. “Leaves are for leaving!” he likes to say with a chuckle. I have a lot of respect for both of them, so I listened and I learned. They saw things I didn’t see and knew things I didn’t know, and pointed them out. I started paying attention to the health of the soil and the wildlife and not just the health and aesthetics of the plants. I tried out more native plants to encourage more biodiversity. And I nixed the weed killers. It’s hard to encourage life in your garden when you are putting down poison. (1)
But still, I had my limits.
One of the plants I put in was California Goldenrod, a local native. I first saw it at Bol Park, where there is a great selection of natives, all carefully labeled, so you can see what they look like throughout the year. (2) I was impressed with goldenrod’s profuse, tall, bright yellow blooms in summer, and the transition to fuzzy golden brown seed heads as the weather cools. It’s a beautiful plant that grows easily here.
You can also see some goldenrod in the back of the big meadow in Foothills Park and in some of the plantings around Google buildings near Shoreline.
I put two little patches of goldenrod in my side yard and a patch near each of two fountains. Unfortunately, after several months I noticed that one of the patches in the side yard was covered with aphids. UGH. I hosed them off and was grateful they hadn’t spread to other patches. The next year they showed up again. And this year, right on schedule, they showed up again. Only that patch but always that patch. Ew.
Ingrid had gently been mentioning that in fact aphids are not so bad. As long as they aren’t protected by ants, they provide food for good garden insects while doing no harm to the plant. OH COME ON! For the first two years, I would have none of it. I quickly and kind of disgustedly hosed them off whenever I saw them.
But over time I listened to what she was saying. Ingrid knows more about these things than I do, and I had also heard other people say that aphids can be okay. Plus it’s kind of a pain to hose them off. So I decided, fine, this year I will let the aphids be.
What beneficial things should I look for? Ingrid had said that ladybugs like to eat aphids, so I could look for those. And parasitic wasps, which are also good predators, like to lay their eggs in the aphids. As the wasp larvae hatch inside, the aphid swells up and dies and eventually the adult wasp chews a hole in the aphid mummy to get out. Oh geez. So I got curious and kept an eye out, albeit with some trepidation.
I started off by looking up the aphids themselves. To my surprise, the aphids I was hosting are called goldenrod aphids. How is it that you plant goldenrod and then, out of nowhere, the goldenrod aphid appears? I love that. But for a long time I didn’t see much besides aphids. I did spot a few ladybugs, but I’d be lying if I said that was all that exciting.
But then, one morning, I saw this!
Ladybug eggs! On my goldenrod! And the mother ladybug had laid them smack in the middle of a big juicy flock of aphids. Her babies were going to be so happy. She couldn’t have found a better spot, and I would get to see baby ladybugs!
See here for what happens next…
Notes
1. And chemicals like RoundUp are not good for gardeners either!
2. I encourage you to check out the plantings in Bol Park, near the playground, if you want to see and learn about a wide variety of natives.
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