Non-gardeners have funny ideas about what a pest is: usually something that gets into your unsecured garbage, something that has a “bad reputation,” something that they haven’t seen before and isn’t necessarily cute…

If you garden, you’ll necessarily have food and maybe some shelter for insects and wildlife — and that means you’ll have visitors. Not all of them are pests! With some experience, you’ll know which animals and insects are, and which are merely hazards of gardening. Here I discuss both nuisance and beneficial wildlife.

There are a lot of strategies to attract the animals and insects we want, and repel the ones we don’t. And sometimes, an act of welcome will reduce the nuisance effect.

For instance, putting out a dish of water for the squirrels will reduce the number of tomatoes and cucumbers they steal — because your vegetables are an easy source of water on a hot, thirsty day. They’ll go for the water bowl, so put it out sooner rather than later, and the birds will benefit too. (But you still want to put netting on your fruit!)

Some people still need to get used to sharing the outdoors with non-humans, and the best way is through education. Of course, don’t leave garbage unsecured, and for the animals’ own security, don’t feed the wildlife – except with good bird feeders.

If you see anything unusual, ask for advice from a local wildlife service that knows the area’s ecology. Some are humane removal companies; they may know. Otherwise, ask your nearest university’s Biology department or other ecology organization.

If you have a good big space and understand your area ecology and populations, humane removal companies may appreciate having a place to where they are authorized to release otherwise-unwanted animal guests.

Gardeners have specific strategies to protect our efforts, and our harvests, from being tampered with. The Canadian Wildlife Federation has a tip sheet on dealing with problem wildlife. Strategies begin with:

  • exclusion methods such as fences, chicken wire coverings, and netting
  • companion planting with strong-smelling plants that herbivores don’t like such as chives, onion, garlic, lavender, rosemary, and marigolds (which are known for repelling insects) – a list of repelling plants here
  • installing a motion-detector sprinkler – this is high-tech repellent that works for cats and other animals.
  • Do not use cayenne or hot pepper as a repellent. It’s one thing to ingest hot pepper and learn a hard lesson, but it can get into the animal’s eyes, which is vindictive and hardly instructive. You’d be better off using fox pee repellent, which is available at some garden centres.

Small animals, usually mammals

In the city, we rarely have to consider large animals like deer getting into our gardens and eating our vegetables and shrubs. But if you have wild rabbits, low, thorny shrubs are welcome refuges from predators, just as evergreen trees are refuges for birds in winter. Roses will attract bees and other pollinators, or hawthorns, which are native and will feed birds in the winter. Just don’t plant buckthorn. It’s an invasive species that produces allelopathic chemicals in the soil that ward off other plants competing with it. And keep your vegetable plot closely fenced!

Euphorbia
This is a spurge.

I’ve also recently found out that hyacinths and spurges (Euphorbia, one variety pictured above) and castor oil plants are repellents for moles. They don’t like their odour, so they may not hang around.

The following sound repellent might also work: Stick an empty soda bottle in the ground near the mole nest, right side up. The sound of the whistling wind in the empty bottle supposedly drives the animals away. 

Don’t use a rodent-repellent sound emitter device outdoors. It could interfere with more animals than rodents, and eventually, they will become desensitized to it. Humans can become inured to auditory nuisance, but intermittent noise is a stress factor for wildlife.

If you live near a river, use trunk wrapping on trees, made of plastic or wire, to keep the deer, beavers, or even muskrats from grazing the bark or cutting down the tree. You can see this in various parks with watercourses in them. It’s even effective against the nibbling of mice (mice can harm a tree, though the risk of them doing so would be unique to their populations in certain areas).

If there are birds that you want to repel, such as pigeons, starlings, and others (personally, I’m a fan of house sparrows, though only where the native birds have gone away), you can read up on strategies at the Audubon FAQ website.

The SPA de l’Estrie has a site in French what to do if you’re having problems with a small mammal – and explains why removing the animals won’t help the situation. Nature abhors a vacuum.

If, on the other hand, you find a baby wild animal in your garden, DO NOT KIDNAP IT. Start by leaving it alone, but watch it from afar. Wild animal mothers often leave their young alone while they feed, but they are still around. It is a MYTH that they will reject their young if a human touches them. Just put the animal back where you found it (safely), and leave to observe them from afar. Use flour or yarn as a perimeter-line to see whether the mother visits the young overnight.

If the animal you find is injured, start calling vet clinics and search for a wildlife rehab, but first secure it from further predation. All outdoor cats should be wearing the BirdBeSafe collar; it will at least prevent bird predation, though it’s not as effective for mice and other small animals. Remember that they belong outdoors in their world, whereas your cat is a highly effective alien predator playing for fun.

If you want to learn more about how to deal with different wild animal interventions, watch the videos on the Ontario Wildlife Removal Facebook page.

Insect pests

While one would not want a colony of fire ants wherever one plans on lounging or puttering, the ants that we should concerned with are carpenter ants. They eat wood from the inside out and are highly destructive to dwelling. The videos on YouTube and eHow of attracting ants with boric-sugar mixes just angers me: the ants they kill are harmless, and in fact can be beneficial! However, in my observations with sugar ants and terminal growth buds on outdoor plants, the plants have not suffered, and the new growth has been as shiny as the old. It’s actually worth further research before going for the lethal solution.

To repel ants, sprinkle cinnamon or talcum powder across the path where you don’t want them to go. It reportedly confuses their sense of direction, or they just don’t like it. Move the houseplants that attract them to the outside for the summer (and remember to repot them when you bring them back inside, leaving the old soil outside!). Seal up any identifable sources they come in, which at least will dissuade them. And because they will still come around – don’t let yourself be bothered by them, even if this doesn’t seem to be normal at first. After all, we were programmed to go for the Raid. You are now weaning yourself off these chemicals, and old ideas.

When you choose your vegetables for planting, at the same time, read up which pests they tend to attract. For cucumbers, squash, zucchini, and melons, beware the many kinds of cucumber beetle. They can decimate your crop in less than a week by transmitting bacteria that causes wilt.

The best prevention for this is a daily inspection of your plants, and if you see an infestation, use a dust-buster or hand-sized vacuum. Flip the leaves over and look for masses of eggs. Be as thorough as possible. A big country-sized garden (say, a 5 x 10-meter plot) takes about an hour a day to inspect during pest season. That’s one advantage our small city gardens have: we can do the tending and watering in a fraction of that time.

Please DO NOT use a product called Tanglefoot to try to protect your trees and shrubs, except in the case of dire insect infestation, such as gypsy moth! It hits non-target species alike, including birds and small mammals, and this is an inherently cruel and abusive way to kill them. Are you really going to attend to constant checks to make sure nothing bad happens to non-target animals? Of course you won’t. First, who’s got the time for such checks? Even if you work from home, you will forget. To try to treat a bird or animal who’s become trapped in the glue, you have to use oil and carefully extract them from the glue and clean them off. This is an ordeal for them and you. Not all insects are harmful to your trees, their seasonal appearance is to be expected, and for most of them, their populations are without harm to the vegetation and beneficial over all. In some cases, a systemic insecticide specifically for your target pest really is preferable to generalized warfare.