On 12/15/04 5:43 AM, in article ,
"Eyebright" wrote:

Alan Gould Wrote:
In article , Eyebright
writes-

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Which problems do you have in mind?
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Alan & Joan Gould - North Lincs.

oh...any really anything people have found which encourages natural
preditors of pests or reduces likelyhood of disease..
for instance...never done this one but heard that hanging a bird feeder
in winter up in a climbing rose has the effect that the birds waiting
their turn to feed eat aphid eggs from the rose branches.

Humm...hanging a bird feeder in a climbing rose...? It is probably worthy of
a try. It won't hurt and maybe it will work. I tried a similar thing.
I hung a bird feeder above my asparagus. Put enough feed in it to attract
the birds. I was hoping they would eat the asparagus beetles that were
running rampant in my asparagus plants. I noticed several birds in the
asparagus fronds eating something...not sure what. Maybe asparagus fronds?
But I'm thinking that at least some asparagus beetles were eaten. It is
interesting to note that birds will not eat 'all' the beetles...they leave
them to multiply...tomorrow's lunch! In some ways they are smarter than you
and I but then some things are hard to prove.
Have you seen the tiny 'helicopter' type wasps? As far as I know all wasps
are predators. The tiny ones eat small 'bugs'. The bugs that eat plants. So
to answer your question of encouraging natural predators...have plants with
small flowers...the small flowers attract small wasps. They are the tiny
predators that eat tiny bugs.
Gary
Gary