My wife recently sent me a link to a video that I enjoyed so much that I wanted to share it with you.  The link comes from “Insects in the City”.  This is one of the most useful websites out there for Texas Gardeners.  It is run and written by Mike Merchant, PhD.  Mike is an Entomolgy Specialist for Texas Agrilife Extension and his website is the first place I go for insect identification and control questions.

Sally sent me this link because I am currently working on an article for Texas Gardener about using your gardening skills to create spaces that will bring more wildlife into your garden.  When most people think about doing something like this, their goals is usually to attract more birds and butterflies.  While there is certainly nothing wrong with this, this video clearly shows that the end result of these efforts will always bring in a whole lot more than just birds and butterflies.

Mountain mint, one day in August from David Cappaert on Vimeo.

The video was created by retired entomologist David Cappaert.  He volunteers at a school in Connecticut.  He noticed that a mountain mint plant in the school’s garden had a large amount of insect activity.  He decided to film the plant for 12 hours and see how many bugs came to visit.  This 12 minute clip shows each of the 52 insects he recorded.  The video really surprised me.  This single plant brought in 52 pollinators.  That is truly amazing to me.

I generally consider bugs in my garden a problem.  However, this video shows there are many more useful bug species visiting my garden than there are harmful ones.  While I have been in favor of organic pest control methods for a long time, this video really brought home why that is important.  If you spray a pesticide you are going to kill a lot more than the intended target.  I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did and I hope it encourages you to use targeted, organic methods that do the least damage to your garden and the insects in it.

I share my posts on The Simple Homestead Blog Hop.  Be sure to stop by and check out all the amazing things these gardeners and homesteaders are doing!