When is a pest not a pest?

When you garden for a particular purpose it can be hard to let go of some of the 'traditional' or 'by the book' methods of working. In my case, although I garden very much for my own wellbeing, this is a wildlife garden and that can mean there are times when I have to take a pause and look at what I am doing, and ask myself the question, how does this benefit nature and still look beautiful to me?

This morning on Twitter there was a post that criticised TV Gardener Monty Don's comments from his new book he had said that "gardeners had to change their attitude to wildlife regarded as 'pests' and that 'slugs should be seen as a symptom of a problem as they seek 'plants that are dying or overfed' and that gardeners should focus on healthy plants and an 'holistic garden'. The replies have been mostly in agreement with the initial poster that its complete tosh with a just a few in agreement with Monty.

I live on the edge of a woodland, on a soggy night you can hardly walk down the path for snails and slugs. In the veg garden I have started to use containers and planters hanging off the fence to try and actually get some produce to eat without the 'slimy gits' getting there before me. I absolutely will not use slug pellets and I'm reluctant to consider nematodes. I've tried the coffee grounds, the sheep's wool pellets, grit and eggshells and even copper tape and nothing has stopped them. Every year I moan like crazy at the plant losses. For some reason the snails like to chew right through the flower spike of lupins and lets not even think about the hostas! But this year I started to think in a different way. This is a garden for wildlife. That means all wildlife and to be a fully functioning ecosystem that means the less desirables along with the cute and fluffy pollinators.

Last year I discovered a pile of empty snail shells under a wooden pallet. After a wee bit of research I found out that ground beetles predate on snails leaving a neat pile of escargot shells. This reminded me that everything is food for someone else.

The one and only delphinium in the garden is a big target for the slimy gits. They love the new growth and can strip a plant over night. This plant was supposed to be the centrepiece of the middle bed, but during a previous rejig I dug it out and replanted it closer to the hedge. It wasn't eaten at all that year. Then, by chance one evening I spotted a blackbird hunting along the edge of the hedge with a snail in its beak and I realised that moving this plant just a few feet away from its original location had meant it was now more protected.

Sometimes though, its a case of outsmarting the little sods. If I plant the dahlias out in the border or put the dahlia pots into the courtyard before the plants have achieved any decent size, they are munched to within an inch of their existence. This year I sat the pots up on the picnic table until the plants were flowering. Then I put the big bushy plants into the courtyard and they have had a little bit of damage but not much more than a nibble out of the odd leaf. In fact, one plant collapsed due to vineweevil rather than slug or snail damage. Ironically, one wee dahlia that survived the winter in the border has grown away with not a single bite mark.

In the front garden I have a slate sign propped up against the bottom of the oak and when you check behind it in the day time you can find a whole collection of slugs and huuuuge snails hiding out. Then, its just a case of grabbing a pot and relocating them up into the woodland and running back to the house before they do!

The hostas have been interesting. There are a number of them in various locations around the garden and those in pots have been absolutely shredded while those in the ground have only had some minor damage. I figured that the ones in pots, while you would think they have an advantage, are actually easier for the slimy gits to hide in and avoid predation. The one anomaly was the lovely fleshy hosta that I moved beside Qi the dragon at the fish pond. Despite this area being a hang out of a variety of beetles as well as a whole army of frogs...17 at one count on a sunny day in the pond, it got seriously munched and has now been dug out and potted up into one of the containers that hangs off the fence. The frogs it seems were too busy having a pool party to protect the plants, I must think about increasing their rent if they are not going to get on with the job!

Another interesting event this year was the amount of aphids on the rose 'Compassion' around the back of the house. Aphids are a sticky mess that feast on the sap of new growth and one of the remedies to get rid of them is to spray with a washing up liquid solution. When I saw them this year I was in two minds whether to attempt to get rid of them or not. At one point I sprayed them direct with a jet off the hose and next thing I saw a lacewing come tumbling out. Lacewings, like ladybird larva, feast on aphids so I made the decision to leave the aphids for the lacewing and later in the year when another infestation occurred I spotted a parasitoid wasp at the aphids. This tiny little assassin is a great friend in the garden as they inject their eggs into aphids that then go on to eat them from the inside out...fabulous!

So maybe Monty is right, maybe we do need to re-evaluate our relationship with so called 'pests' in the garden and if we are serious about gardens as wildlife friendly places we need look at the wider picture of our gardens as functioning ecosystems where all nature has its place. What do you think?