It’s the time of year again when I find my citrus plants covered in wiggling bird poop. The caterpillar form of the swallowtail butterfly is extra fond of citrus plants and they make a point to have their first point of life in my garden. I have a rule that I make plain to the little critters: you can stay if you don’t eat too many leaves. Eat too much and you get evicted. It does no good for them if the plant dies.
It got me thinking: where do others sit on the scale of “magazine perfect lawn piece” to “it’s less garden and more forest area I found to live in”?
Do you have everything where the animals can’t get to them or are you fighting the birds for the perfect ripeness of a fig?
I have to be careful with wildlife because my property backs up to a canyon and rats can be a serious problem. I have to fence off my vegetables, last year the bunnies got to my cucumber leaves and the rats got into my tomatoes.
The blueberries get covered because I have one knucklehead bird that loves to fuck with me. This lady digs up the mulch just after it’s been cleaned and spreads it all over the flagstone just so she can eat bugs. She started going after the blueberries and I had to cover it because nothing was getting ripe enough for me to eat. She did bring her baby around and I got to watch it bathe in a puddle of water though, so that was cute.
The pillbugs in my garden bed are very lucky. I feed them plant scraps so they won’t eat my living plants. They already destroyed 5 luffas and 4 hot pepper plants. I cut down my dragon tail radish plant and froze most of the radishes to feed to the pillbugs. They also like when I deadhead the marigolds, they latch on and I find so many babies in the flowers. Then I throw them over the fence into the canyon like a pillbug bomb lol
I have a pact with the spiders and mantises in my yard though. They get free range all over and can eat any and every bug they find. Last year, I had a green lynx spider in my cucumber plant who was my best friend for the summer. She was a tiny thing missing 2 legs and ate so many aphids and bees that she turned into a big hulking mama. I tracked her for 9 months and watched her babies hatch and roam away to the canyon.
I have more agreements with the insects and spiders in my garden.
I do the native plant thing for wildlife thing so when the cardinal or mockingbird nabs some blueberries or the aphids are covering a stem of my black-eyed susan then all is going according to plan. Usually I find that if some insect population starts going too crazy then it won’t be long before their predators roll in and re-establish some balance. Aphidtown clears out quick when the ladybugs stay a spell…
My mom got some sort of a plant that was meant for butterflies. She thought it would attract butterflies. She didn’t understand that once they were attracted, they would lay eggs, the eggs would hatch, and the plants would be covered by caterpillars, destined to become butterflies.
My mom did not appreciate all those caterpillars, and that was the end of the butterfly plant.
I have an rule with the bunnies and all other mammals that they can eat all of the clover and nibble on all my wildflowers. They can’t have any of my garden vegetables. They don’t listen at all.
I also have a rule that the house is for humans and dogs only. They also don’t to this but the poison and traps inside are a slight deterrent.
Animals, as long as they’re not being too destructive, get a pass. Single exception being around my tomatoes, they get one chance to not do it again before I take steps.
Insects are a bit different, I generally try to build a beneficial environment where lady bugs and helpers outweigh the pests. It doesn’t always work, but more often than not we come to a stable understanding.
I let a patch in the backyard grow with grass, clover and other native plants that happened to grow in there. I keep it trimmed and use the cuttings to layer my compost pile.
My parents and neighbour hate it:
As much as they hate it, the bunny crop are coming in nicely and they don’t want to pick a fight with the bunnies.
The bunnies love it in there, they have safe space to hide but still get to enjoy the sun. It’s better than the suburban wasteland of cut-too-short lawns where there’s not many places to chill.In order to make sure my beans survived the first few weeks, I planted so many beans early in the year so at least some would survive to maturity.
I also keep leafy greens and my veggie scraps compost pile in a small gated area and the other stuff has to battle it out in the ungated gardens.
It’s going okay so far but things have only recently started to pick up so I’ll see where it goes from here.
That is a good crop of buns. You should be proud of that one
My house had zero landscape plants when I bought it. Now it has several hundred. In a couple areas, I planted host plants just for caterpillars to eat, and am growing more from seed to have even more host plants. I’m even considering a native citrus specifically to attract swallowtail butterflies.
All that to say, your tree will be fine, even if it looks a little ragged.
Oh, this is not the first time for them. I’ve had one citrus die between summer survival time and too greedy caterpillars so I try to keep a balance between the two. I appreciate being considered a safe space for them to grow. Next is a little area for monarchs and others to enjoy a stay
What about planting something else that they’ll eat like hop tree? Obviously that’s not much of an immediate solution, though.
To answer your original question, it’s always a balancing act. I love all kinds of butterflies and moths, but an asp on plants near my front door still had to go. They turn into the southern flannel moth, but as caterpillars are capable of a very painful sting.
I grumble when i have to cull produce that has been nibbled on. But I’m trying to internalize that the goal isn’t perfect. It’s to grow enough to share. I’m always happy to share with swallowtails. But sometimes the squirrels and chipmunks get to me.
Have had surprise peanuts due to squirrels so it’s not always bad
I have pretty much given up. The insect apocalypse has me worried. The watermelon seems able to out-grow whatever it is that always eats its leaves. Squash, never. Tomatoes I hand pick the bugs off with chopsticks but can’t keep up with them. Citrus mostly does ok. Okra grows without anything bothering it, also broccoli, cauliflower, collards, mustard, fennel, sweet potatoes, hong tsoi, catmint, most of the trees.
Passion fruit, I had a vine but some caterpillar that can only eat passion flower vine ate it to death and didn’t even stick around to make butterflies. So I gave up on that even though it does like the heat.
And I don’t know how many years I would have to not grow squash to get the squash bugs under control.
Birds, I grow elderberries for them. Crows I give cat food in the front yard hoping they ignore the backyard, so far so good.
