Remember how it used to be, driving home on a summer’s night? Your windshield would be covered in dead bugs. “Not to worry,” you could tell yourself, “there are millions more that I didn’t kill.”
Today, it is a clean windshield and definitely “to worry.” According to recent scientific studies, the world’s insects, those “little things that run the world” as E.O. Wilson put it, are on a one-way street to extinction, threatening what one study labelled a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems.” More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. “Insect apocalypse”? Maybe. And if so, human apocalypse for sure. Insects can survive perfectly well without humans, but without insects we would die.
The potential loss of attractive and obviously useful insects, such as bees and butterflies, has attracted some attention, but what about the flies and ants and crickets? Or my favorite, the beetle? “There are more than 350,000 species of beetle and many are thought to have declined, especially dung beetles,” writes one reporter. Look, folks, loss of the dung beetle could be a real problem. The Australians discovered this when they didn’t have any to break down or bury cowpats.
The services insects provide, however, go well beyond pollination and cowpat management. As scavengers, beetles feed on dead animals and fallen trees; they get rid of debris while recycling nutrients back into the soil. Other insects create soil health by aerating our dirt. Most gardeners love the big-eyed bug and praying mantis because they control the size of certain other insect populations, such as aphids and caterpillars, which feed on new plant growth. Yes, a bug-eat-bug world is a better than a world made toxic by chemicals.
Do you love birds? Then you need to appreciate insects. The robin yanking a worm out of the ground is one image of early spring. Most birds, however, live on bugs. Baby birds definitely live on bugs. Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope, reports that a single nest of baby chickadees will require 6000 to 9000 caterpillars to fledge. No bugs, no birds.
Of course, there are bugs that do damage to plants we love; they are the ones that get most of the attention and not all of them can be controlled by other bugs. I am prepared, however, to pick Japanese beetles off my Hibiscus and sawflies off my Mugo pine by hand if necessary rather than spray these plants with chemicals. I may even be prepared to give up some favorites if they prove to be unmanageable without chemicals.
It’s the lawn that poses the real challenge. I know that the pesticides and herbicides applied in massive doses to the urban and suburban lawn are a major factor in the collapse of insect populations. I know that I have to change how I view the lawn. I know this won’t be easy.
I have been waging a battle against ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), aka Creeping Charlie, for years now. In a sobering interchange this past fall, my lawn care manager put it bluntly: “If you want to get rid of Charlie, you will need to treat the lawn at least three times a season.” Three times? Three applications of a substance that could lead to “insect apocalypse”? O.k. Charlie, you win. I am taking the pledge to become a “rebugger.”
So what does it take to become a rebugger? Here are the guidelines from the latest issue of Horticulture:
Don’t use pesticides.
Avoid excessive digging.
Don’t be too tidy. Leaves some weeds, logs, leaves.
Include a wide variety of plants and habitats.
I am down with the first two requirements, and I am on a mission to plant more natives each season to increase variety and habitat, but can I really be less tidy?
I frequently give a talk on lower-maintenance perennial gardening. As part of the talk, I point out that the characteristics of lower-maintenance perennials are also the characteristics of many plants we call “weeds.” They are tough, they can take full sun, they don’t need water or staking or deadheading, they proliferate, they come up early and stay up late. So, I tell my audience, the issue is one of aesthetics. If we change our sense of the beautiful, we can enjoy lower-maintenance gardening.
I need to listen to myself. I need to find weeds, logs, and leaves attractive. I’ve succeeded so far with the leaves, having left a covering in all of my garden beds this year and finding the look lovely. But I am going to have to learn to like the look of Creeping Charlie. Of course, I already have plans to take up that part of the lawn where Charlie is most invasive and turn it into garden. This may require a bit of “excessive digging,” but, hey, two steps forward, one step back is the way it usually goes..
Looking for photos of Creeping Charlie to share with my readers, I made some interesting discoveries that point me in an entirely new direction. It turns out that Creeping Charlie has a long history of medicinal use, though I can find no trace of it in my father’s 1920’s pharmaceutical textbook. The Holistic Herbal (2003), however, recommends it for sinus problems, coughs and bronchitis, tinnitus, diarrhea, hemorrhoids and cystitis. I do get the occasional UTI and I definitely have tinnitus, so ripping up and chewing Glechoma hederacea might not be a bad idea.
I also learned that Creeping Charlie is considered a “wild edible.” According to those who see it this way, the young leaves, which are extremely rich in vitamin C, can be eaten raw or cooked. The leaves, apparently, have a mild mint-like flavor and can be tossed into salads to add a slight tang. Creeping Charlie leaves can also be cooked like spinach, added to soups, stews, or omelettes. Dried leaves can also be used for tea or even, like hops, to improve the flavor of beer.
Even more astonishing, I learn that Proven Winners, one of the major purveyors of ornamental plants, sells ‘Dappled Light,’ a variety of Glechoma hedera, for use as an attractive ground cover or for growing in decorative hanging backets. Charlie is for sale? People actually buy it? Perhaps I should buy some ‘Dappled Light’ to make my lawn more ornamental.
Picture me, then, next season, sticking to my resolution and sitting on my lawn of ‘Dappled Light,’ magnifying glass in hand. I will be chewing on Charlie leaves and looking for bugs. Until then my plan is to read and re-read Vicki Hird’s Rebugging the Planet (2021).
https://www.perennialwisdom.net/rebugging/
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