Aphids

Aphids

Aphids are a small, soft-bodied insect that you can find on many plants in the garden, usually on the new growth and under leaves. They can be green, red, orange, black or white and woolly,  and are usually in clusters on new blooms and new growth, they are a common pest on roses.

The aphids tube-like mouth pierces the soft new growth of the plant and uses it as a straw to draw out fluids it uses to survive. This can cause a plant to be deformed, causes the plant to be more susceptible to disease and can even cause the plants death. 

Although pesticides can be used, the preferable way to deal with these pests is to make sure your plants have the proper nutrients and soil conditions, are planted where they can receive the lighting required for the specific plants, and encourage beneficial insects in your garden. Some well known beneficial insects that feast on aphids are Ladybugs and Green lacewings.

Photo by WikiPedant at Wikimedia Commons [Attribution or CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Carnivorous Plants: Venus Flytrap

Venus Flytrap

The Venus Flytrap is one of the most well known of the carnivorous plants. they can be found to purchase seasonally through many local home and garden centers and through online purchasing.   Although one of the most well known, they are not the easiest to keep alive and they take several years to mature, unlike the carnivorous Sundew which can live in a variety of environments and can mature in as little as 3 months depending on the variety.

   If you are introducing children to carnivorous plant, The Venus Flytrap is really cool, but hard to keep alive and not as fun to watch eat as a Sundew in my opinion.

Below I have included some detailed information obtained by Wikipedia.

   

Venus Flytrap is a plant whose structure can be described as a rosette of four to seven leaves, which arise from a short subterranean stem that is actually a bulb-like object. Each stem reaches a maximum size of about three to ten centimeters, depending on the time of year;^[4] longer leaves with robust traps are usually formed after flowering. Flytraps that have more than seven leaves are colonies formed by rosettes that have divided beneath the ground.

Illustration from Curtis's Botanical Magazine by William Curtis (1746–1799)

The leaf blade is divided into two regions: a flat, heart-shaped photosynthesis-capable petiole, and a pair of terminal lobes hinged at the midrib, forming the trap which is the true leaf. The upper surface of these lobes contains red anthocyanin pigments and its edges secrete mucilage. The lobes exhibit rapid plant movements, snapping shut when stimulated by prey. The trapping mechanism is tripped when prey contacts one of the three hair-like trichomes that are found on the upper surface of each of the lobes. The mechanism is so highly specialized that it can distinguish between living prey and non-prey stimuli, such as falling raindrops;^[5] two trigger hairs must be touched in succession within 20 seconds of each other or one hair touched twice in rapid succession,^[5] whereupon the lobes of the trap will snap shut, typically in about one-tenth of a second.^[6] The edges of the lobes are fringed by stiff hair-like protrusions or cilia, which mesh together and prevent large prey from escaping. These protrusions, and the trigger hairs (also known as sensitive hairs) are likely homologous with the tentacles found in this plant’s close relatives, the sundews. Scientists have concluded that the snap trap evolved from a fly-paper trap similar to that of Drosera.^[7]

The holes in the meshwork allow small prey to escape, presumably because the benefit that would be obtained from them would be less than the cost of digesting them. If the prey is too small and escapes, the trap will usually reopen within 12 hours. If the prey moves around in the trap, it tightens and digestion begins more quickly.

Speed of closing can vary depending on the amount of humidity, light, size of prey, and general growing conditions. The speed with which traps close can be used as an indicator of a plant's general health. Venus flytraps are not as humidity-dependent as are some other carnivorous plants, such as Nepenthes, Cephalotus, most Heliamphora, and some Drosera.

The Venus flytrap exhibits variations in petiole shape and length and whether the leaf lies flat on the ground or extends up at an angle of about 40–60 degrees. The four major forms are: 'typica', the most common, with broad decumbent petioles; 'erecta', with leaves at a 45-degree angle; 'linearis', with narrow petioles and leaves at 45 degrees; and 'filiformis', with extremely narrow or linear petioles. Except for 'filiformis', all of these can be stages in leaf production of any plant depending on season (decumbent in summer versus short versus semi-erect in spring), length of photoperiod (long petioles in spring versus short in summer), and intensity of light (wide petioles in low light intensity versus narrow in brighter light).^{[citation needed]}

Wikipedia contributors. "Venus flytrap." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Jan. 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

Beneficial Insects : Lacewings

The Green Lacewing

The Green Lacewing is a common flying insect that is beneficial in the garden with an appetite for aphids and other small soft bodied pests.

Below I have shared some detailed information about them I have obtained from wikipedia.

Head close-up of Apertochrysa edwardsi from Austins Ferry, Tasmania, Australia

Green lacewings are delicate insects with a wingspan of 6 to over 65 mm, though the largest forms are tropical. They are characterized by a wide costal field in their wing venation, which includes the cross-veins. The bodies are usually bright green to greenish-brown, and the compound eyes are conspicuously golden in many species. The wings are usually translucent with a slight iridescence; some have green wing veins or a cloudy brownish wing pattern. The vernacular name "stinkflies", used chiefly for Chrysopa species but also for others (e.g. Cunctochrysa) refers to their ability to release a vile smell from paired prothoracal glands when handled.

Adults have tympanal organs at the forewings' base, enabling them to hear well. Some Chrysopa show evasive behavior when they hear a bat's ultrasound calls: when in flight, they close their wings (making their echolocational signature smaller) and drop down to the ground. Green lacewings also use substrate or body vibrations as a form of communication between themselves, especially during courtship. Species which are nearly identical morphologically may sometimes be separated more easily based on their mating signals. For example, the southern European Chrysoperla mediterranea looks almost identical to its northern relative C. carnea (Common Green Lacewing), but their courtship "songs" are very different; individuals of one species will not react to the other's vibrations.^[2]

Larva of unknown species (from Latvia) camouflaged with sand grains

Adults are crepuscular or nocturnal. They feed on pollen, nectar and honeydew supplemented with mites, aphids and other small arthropods, and some, namely Chrysopa, are mainly predatory. Others feed almost exclusively on nectar and similar substances, and have symbiotic yeasts in their digestive tract to help break down the food into nutrients.^[1]

Larvae have either a more slender "humpbacked" shape with a prominent bulge on the thorax, or are plumper, with long bristles jutting out from the sides. These bristles will collect debris and food remains – the empty integuments of aphids, most notably – that provide camouflage from birds.

Stalked eggs of unknown species, Mainzer Sand (Rheinland-Pfalz, Deutschland)

Larva of Common Green Lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea) or perhaps C. mediterranea feeding on an aphid

Eggs are deposited at night, singly or in small groups; one female produces some 100–200 eggs. Eggs are placed on plants, usually where aphids are present nearby in numbers. Each egg is hung on a slender stalk about 1 cm long, usually on the underside of a leaf. Immediately after hatching, the larvae moult, then ascend the egg stalk to feed. They are voracious predators, attacking most insects of suitable size, especially soft-bodied ones (aphids, caterpillars and other insect larvae, insect eggs, and at high population densities also each other). The larvae may also occasionally bite humans, possibly out of either aggression or hunger.^[3]Therefore, the larvae are colloquially known as "aphid lions" (also spelled "aphidlions") or "aphid wolves", similar to the related antlions. Their senses are weakly developed, except that they are very sensitive to touch. Walking around in a haphazard fashion, the larvae sway their heads from one side to the other, and when they strike a potential prey object, the larva grasps it. Their maxillae are hollow, allowing a digestive secretion to be injected in the prey; the organs of an aphid can for example be dissolved by this in 90 seconds. Depending on environmental conditions, larvae need about 1–3 weeks to pupation which takes place in a cocoon; species from temperate regions usually overwinter as a prepupa, though C. carnea overwinters as newly hatched adults.

Use in biological pest control[edit source]

While depending on species and environmental conditions, some green lacewings will eat only about 150 prey items in their entire life, in other cases 100 aphids will be eaten in a single week. Thus, in several countries, millions of such voracious Chrysopidae are reared for sale as biological control agents of insect and mite pests in agriculture and gardens. They are distributed as eggs, since as noted above they are highly aggressive and cannibalistic in confined quarters; the eggs hatch in the field. Their performance is variable; thus, there is a lot of interest in further research to improve the use of green lacewings as biological pest control. Species that have hitherto attracted wider study and are more or less readily available as captive-bred eggs to deposit out for hatching in pest-infested plant cultures are several members of Chrysoperla as well as Mallada signatus.^[4]

Gardeners can attract these lacewings – and therefore ensure a steady supply of larvae – by using certain companion plants and tolerating beneficial weeds. Chrysopidae are attracted mainly by Asteraceae – e.g. calliopsis (Coreopsis), cosmos (Cosmos), sunflowers (Helianthus) and dandelion (Taraxacum) – and Apiaceae such as dill (Anethum) or angelica (Angelica).

Systematics an

Wikipedia contributors. "Chrysopidae." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 12 Jan. 2017. Web. 27 Jan. 2017.

By SVG version was created by User:Grunt and cleaned up by 3247, based on the earlier PNG version, created by Reidab. - This version created by Pumbaa, using a proper partial circle and SVG geometry features. (Former versions used to be slightly warped.), Public Domain, Link