449-The Case Against Buying Ladybugs and for Non-Natives-Encore Presentation

Hi everybody, I'm Joe Lampold, the Joe behind Joe Gardner and welcome to the Joe Gardner show. Today's episode isn't on core and just like every on core that we post, they are all worthy of a second listen or watch. And this is the first time it's being posted as video. So I think you would enjoy this one even more if you ended up watching this on our YouTube channel as well. But at the time that we originally set up this podcast interview with today's guest, Dr. Caitlin Stack Whitney, it was intended to be around an article that she authored regarding the practice and concerns of using wild harvested and widely distributed ladybugs, specifically convergent ladybirds as they are commonly known. They're taken from sites in and around this year and Nevada mountains in California, and they are then stored and shipped to retailers and to home gardeners across the country who buy and use them as a form of natural or biological pest control against primarily aphids and other soft bodied insect pests. But without a full understanding of the unintended consequences of this natural pest control strategy, the idea seems fairly benign, but it's not. And that's what I wanted to talk to Caitlin about today. And we certainly do that. But the added benefit of this conversation goes much deeper than just the concerns of transporting and using non local ladybugs, especially when there are many resident ladybugs wherever we live. Caitlin is an environmental studies scholar and assistant professor in the science technology and society department at the Rochester Institute of Technology College of Liberal Arts. And here's the bonus. She is also an active home vegetable gardener and a very experienced community gardener, even serving as president of her community garden association when she lived near Washington DC. So what you are going to hear today is rich, deep and very thought provoking. So let's get into it. And as we do, thanks to our sponsor for today's episode, the ultimate gardening sheath. The ultimate gardening sheath is the one piece of gear that truly changed the way that I garden. After years of juggling, my pruners, soil knife and micro snips, I co-created this sheath to keep everything secure, comfortable, and right where I needed it. And based on your feedback, it's done the same for many of you. And with the holidays here, it's perfect timing. The ultimate gardening sheath is also the ultimate gardening gift. If you want something unique, beautifully handcrafted and built to last for years, this is it. And now through December 31st, you get the pro series edition, which includes the UV marking pin, plant tags, and stainless steel carabiner at no additional cost, a free $15 upgrade. Handmade in North Carolina by a skilled leather artisan, this sheath is practical, durable, and one of a kind. It's available exclusively at joegardiner.com slash UGS to learn more and order yours today. Visit joegardiner.com slash UGS. Dr. Stack Whitney, thank you very much for being here today. You know, and looking at your bio and the fact that you're a real home gardener and you're very involved in your community garden and you're a master composter. We have a lot to talk about today. I have a lot of questions and your background is so interesting. So welcome and thank you for being here. I don't think so much for having me. All right. So here's how I always start this. Let's hear in your words how you would like for us to learn more about you. Sure. Well, so I'm Tateline and I am an environmental studies professor. And so I think that one way to think about that is that my background is looking at the environment, but also making sure that we're looking at ways of understanding and exploring the environment that's beyond the sciences. So in terms of how I got into gardening myself, you know, I grew up in a suburban area and my family had a beautiful ornamental garden. We didn't grow up growing anything that we would eat. So I certainly always aesthetically appreciated it, but I became really interested in agricultural topics and actually decided that's what I wanted to go to college to learn more about. And so when I went off to college, I was really interested in learning more about growing food, about understanding how policy affected like international food issues. And because I didn't have a lot of that experience and I certainly wasn't from a farm or anything, I started working on a farm that was at my college. I started getting more experience and had a community garden plot with friends and started really trying to get more of that hands-on experience. And you know, trials and tribulations of learning what this was like, you're really kind of connect those things that you're reading about and learning about in more of an abstract way, trying to do it myself, right, and get that appreciation, you know, and do things like actually to tomato that you've grown yourself in that experience of it being so different. So it's certainly where it started for me and really appreciated the communal aspects of being, for example, a community garden. So ever since in the places that I've lived, it's been a pleasure to try to find where there are community gardens and have plots there. And part of that is super practical, right, like living in apartments and things where there's not always space to have a garden of one's own. Now as someone who has a space that's not always moving around, we turned our front lawn right into a vegetable garden. And so now having a grass lawn, we are growing mostly vegetables, but also things that are just for fun or for the birds. So for example, we have some sunflowers now that are about 10 feet tall and they are mostly just feeding the birds in our yard, right? And so it's an absolute pleasure to be able to look out the window and know that even though that's not for us, that that's actually, you know, there's so much life that's there. So we're growing a kind of scarlet runner bean this summer that we notice that hummingbirds are visiting, right? So there's much joy, I think that was from having a garden, even if you're not eating everything out of it. Right. So now you are you're in the Rochester, New York area, right? Yep. So I live in the Rochester, New York region. Yep. And so it's interesting. It's a different growing zone than when I grew up in and I think as many of us are probably experiencing seasons are changing a lot year to year. And it makes a lot of challenges, but also every day and every season is new. And I think that's the, that's the last way to look at that. So for example, here this summer, it's been very, very wet, really, really wet and actually much cooler. And so I would say that some of the things that normally are looking for like hot dry weather are not doing great this summer. But meanwhile, some other plants that don't, we don't normally have to do very well this long, are first thriving this year. So you know, I'm sure everyone listening, no, it's always something you're dealing with something, you know, every season. I think that's part of what we love about gardening is that no two years let alone seasons or days are the same. You know, so there's always that new adventure the next day or that next season. And you know, for what it's worth, even in spite of climate change, it keeps us on our toes and it's very humbling because you know, we're always adapting to what Mother Nature's throwing at us. And going back to what you said a minute ago, you converted your front yard to an edible food garden or just for fun stuff. So is it safe to say you don't live in an HOA? It is safe to say that we did look up, you know, what are the rules about this around here? Yes, we don't. I know many people do and there are restrictions on that. We did try to consider aesthetics though, right? And I know there's some people in our broader neighborhood on different blocks that also grow vegetables in their front yard. And I think that even though there's nothing formally preventing that, I think they're very trying to remember that people have lots of different ideas. Again, you know, we just started talking about that. Ideas about plants and insects are really ideas about people and what we want to do, what other people think we should be doing. And so I think that it also becomes a good conversation starter for people just walking their dog down the street, you know, some people are really interested and thrilled. I would say that actually once we started growing that garden in part because it isn't our front yard, and we live in an urban area that people are walking around, you meet people in a way that we wouldn't actually otherwise. So it's, you know, it has lots of buy products coming just from the garden being in a place that people may not expect it. Yeah, no kidding. And you as a community gardener for so long and being so active with that and you already mentioned, you love the communal aspect of that. And I think for those of us who are gardening in our backyards, kind of solo, some of the best parts of gardening and that is the community aspect of it. Oh, absolutely. And some of the neat ones that happened in Rochester is even people doing like seedling or seed exchanges. The libraries here, we have a library system here. Many of the branches here just started doing seed libraries, right? And so that's been a way to really build community that you don't need to have a yard. You don't even need to be someone who's doing seed saving. You can just benefit from going and checking out seeds from the library. And then the idea is that hopefully you'll save some seeds from your harvest that year and donate them back, right? But it's totally on your honor. So that's brand new in this area. I know a lot of places have had them for much longer, but it's been so exciting to see that grow, especially, you know, through COVID. Yeah. There are other groups too that have done kind of let's everyone try to take a clipping and meet up in a space like we have a couple of different community spaces where people just have an event and say get together with other people who like plants and just exchange them. The cooperative extension in this county actually does a plant sale every year to benefit the master gardener program. And here the way they do that is they have a bunch of people in the master gardener program make clippings of plants of their own or grow seed links of their own. And so it's a nice way to make acquiring plants, both ornamental and vegetable or indoor plants more affordable for more people and also raise money to help kind of spread more information about gardening. So those are things that, you know, are really about building that community in the broader area that there are lots of ways to kind of get involved if there are things like that near you that don't require, you know, happening to walk by or needing to know someone already. Yeah. I love this conversation already to use that same word and it's not even really a topic we're going to focus on today. But that's okay. That's how gardeners are. They just get into their groove and next thing you know, they're just talking about all kinds of things because we love that conversation. Now, when we first reached out to you, we had seen an article that you wrote. I think it was a peer written article, I think I believe. And it was very interesting and it really addressed an issue that I've talked about in the past on this podcast and elsewhere and that relates to the lady beetles that are oftentimes harvested and we purchase with the intention of using them as a biological control or natural control, however you want to call it, for the pest in our garden, I mean, those lady beetles to be our friends, you know, we're sort of declaring war on the past using the lady beetles for that. But you know, there's issues there that we've talked about in the past, but you have such a great perspective on it. You've been heavily involved in this research and information. So setting you up with that, can you just give us the backstory on how this article came about and your findings and things that you would like to talk about that you address there, but now with me and our listeners. Yeah. So I think one thing is that I think a lot of us who are gardeners have seen lady bird beetles or lady bugs that you know that there's a lot of different term, lady bugs. And so I generally just call them lady bugs, but I know that in the UK, for example, people often call them lady bird beetles. Yeah. And so, I think that's what I think about the lady bug is a family of insects. The technical name is Cox and L.A. That's not important, but it's like the grouping is actually a scientific grouping, right? So it's one group of insects. There's many different kinds of lady bug. And so part of what I was trying to talk about in this piece was that there are some lady bugs that it's really easy to kind of identify as being quote unquote good. And I wanted to really show how there's another set of lady bugs, still lady bugs that we often have much more easily label as quote unquote bad, even though these lady bugs oftentimes are doing the exact same things for us. And so there's a couple of things I think some of which are just really practical for thinking about what does it mean as a gardener to buy lady bugs and why you might not want to do it. And some are much more philosophical about how maybe we can take a step back and think about why is it that we are invested in calling some insects good and some insects bad. And so I think the practical pieces are, you know, as gardeners, when we have insects in our garden that are eating the plants that we want, that can feel really personal, right? So it's attacking my garden. And so one of the things in this piece too was trying to show and to help us reflect on there's a lot of violent militarized language, right? Like this is attacking my plants, right? And it really feels like, especially, you know, if you like me have a garden at your house or if you feel really invested in caring for your plants or you really want that tomato, right? Or whatever you're growing, there are insects, right? That eat plants, right? Or are going to eat the fruit that you want to eat. And so it's easy for us to just think we're now in competition with those insects or with those pests. You know, this summer was the first summer that we had a ripe, a full ripe tomato stolen off of a plant by something, right? You know, and I get that that hurts, right? And so that one thing is to remember that they want to eat that plant and we want to eat that plant. We actually have something in common, right? It doesn't necessarily make us enemies, but it's easy when you're gardening to be focused on. There's these things that I want out of my garden. And this insect pest is in the way. And now I will plan again, I think this is really, it depends on why you're gardening. So for example, I mentioned I get a lot of joy out of gardening. I enjoy that. It's much more beautiful and delicious to grow vegetables and flowers. And it is for me to grow grass in my front yard, right? Because I can do that. But if I was growing those plants for like food security for subsistence, there'd be a different set of things to think about, right? So many of us are growing vegetables or plants. And we're doing it in addition to having other food sources, for example, right? And so that does change what we can think about in terms of thinking about what kinds of risk we're willing to tolerate. So for example, if if aphids are eating my brassicas, maybe I can tolerate a lot of aphids on my plants because I don't need those as a food source. I enjoy them delicious, but if my little garden crop fails in the end of the day, I would be sad, but I would not be food insecure. And so I understand that there are people making really different decisions about that. And so I think part of that is acknowledging that there's not one answer for everyone because everyone is gardening for different reasons. And so a part of why people are gardening is financial and is to grow food for them in a way that's contributing to their food security, you may not be comfortable with aphids or anything else eating your plants in that way. So there is a parallel to more commercial growing where we think about, you know, the economic threshold it's called. Because this wonky term that basically means we calculate how many insects could be on a plant before we know that damage would be caused to the resulting crop. And so most of the time those are really only calculated for commercial farm scale crops. But the idea is that if you were going to do some sort of pest intervention, whether or not that's adding a biological control agent, whether or not that would be spraying something, you want to do that based on evidence, right? On numbers that we have about number one, if you actually wait until pest levels get too high, you may not actually be able to prevent the damage. So anyway, the point being that on a commercial crop growing level, there are models of basically, here's what you would look for when you're going around and looking at the pests in your garden. And we don't necessarily have those same numbers for gardeners, right? Because again, every tolerance for insect damage could be a little different. Especially if you're growing things ornamentally, right? So for example, if the damage is aesthetic, you need to think about, do I care about that aesthetic damage, right? And that's a really personal decision, right? So if it's not actually going to damage the resulting fruit or it's only going to damage it aesthetically, I personally might be willing to tolerate a lot more risk than other people. So I think again, those are some conversations and things to think about. But when it comes to thinking about those insect pests in our garden, the reason that people often like ladybugs is that they're going to eat those things like aphids. And ladybugs are what's known as generalist predators. That's another wonky term from entomology. Basically means is that they eat a lot of different things. And that's one of the reasons they are so successful as predators. That means that if they eat all your aphids, then they can go on to moving and eating something else that's around. So this is what enables them as, you know, they're able to move to the landscape, follow food sources. And so that can be really helpful. So sometimes people who don't want to apply pesticides to their garden think, okay, well, I don't want to apply a pesticide organic or not. I would rather harness the power of ladybugs to eat those things that are eating the plants in my garden. And that's great. One of the challenges about buying them, number one is what I just said about, are you putting them in based on a threshold that we know is actually going to cause damage, right? So for example, if you see one aphid on your plant, it's likely not going to cause, you know, resulting damage that you need to be concerned about. Yeah. And so it's important to remember that it's important to have a risk tolerance that is above zero, right? Because lots of things are out there feeding on plants, right? Yeah. But that if you want to actually use biological agents, there's different approaches to biological control. So purchasing an agent and putting it in your garden is one approach to biological control. It can be known as augmentive. So the idea being that you're augmenting the biological control that could be in your garden by adding something. And that's the idea. And so in an ideal world, what would happen is you buy the ladybugs, you release them directly into your garden. They eat all the things that you don't like problems solved, right? That's the ideal. But we know a lot of things now about that that is unlikely to happen. And this is what I mean by there. So there are some pragmatic reasons why even philosophically, you're not on board with rethinking all insects that you may not want to do this. And so one of which is that it's very unlikely they're going to stay in your garden. So we have a lot of evidence that when you release a beneficial insect, they may actually immediately disperse somewhere else. There are other studies that show that if you kind of look hour after hour, that most of them tend to leave after two days. So it's not a long term pest solution. And then again, the timing is really important. And so if you wait until you have a really big pest outbreak, you might actually be applying them too late to prevent the damage. That timing can be sensitive and really tricky to get right. And so it might mean that you're not making the best use of your resources to pay money to buy this beneficial insect that is not going to stay or didn't end up preventing the damage. And then the other is to think about the fact that a lot of beneficial insects, some of them can be reared in captivity, meaning they can be grown in like a scientific lab and then you're ordering them from a lab. But it tends to be that the particular ladybug that I wrote about, which is hypodamia convergence, the convergent ladybug, is generally harvested from the wild. And so what this means is that it's sort of like a fishery, right? So instead of going and catching a fish, this is a ladybug. It's a wild animal and it's being harvested from the wild. And so there's concern that we're actually potentially damaging, again, the impact is think of it like a ladybug fishery where we want to know if we're actually taking too many of those beneficial insects. So it's a service that we're kind of getting from the natural world. And the concern is that if it's not a farmed animal where we're investing in the resources but we're harvesting out of the wild, there's concern that we might actually be depleting them in their home ecosystem. And because it's not regulated like a commercial fishery, we don't really know for example how many are out there and how many have been taken. So for example, if I want us to go harvest deer in New York State, right, I want to go hunt. I have to go through various regulations. I need to permit there. If I want to go fishing, there's a catch limit, there are size limits. Yeah. One of the concerns is about is that same kind of approach going to be in place to protect things like beneficial insects. So there was some concern in recent years that we just don't know. And there have been some, I would say more annotated in recent years, in part again, due to changing conditions that there may actually be declining beneficial insects on the West Coast. So a lot of where these convergent ladybugs are harvested is out in California. And so especially as someone on the East Coast, if I am purchasing these organisms from the West Coast and then applying them here, what am I doing ecologically? And so that's one of my concerns, right, is thinking about what does this mean both for the ecosystem that I'm putting these into? My tiny ecosystem of my home garden, and then the ecosystem that I've removed these from. And so I think sometimes it's important to remember that when we're gardening, we're often just thinking about our little garden, right? But really at the end of the day, everything is connected. And so it's kind of zooming back out to remember that if we remove these organisms, especially if lots and lots of people are doing this, that we might be having an effect at a much larger scale than we realize by our collective action. There are other ways though to think about ladybugs. And so part of what I was trying to do in this piece was contrast the language about these particular ladybugs with how we often villainize other ladybugs that are actually much more likely to be around us in our gardens and will get you the same pest control. So the other particular ladybug that I was writing about is known as the Harlequin ladybug. It has a lot of other names too. But one of the things that we can talk about is that especially for the field that I come from entomology, which is a study of insects, there's been a push to change how we refer to insects. So the Harlequin ladybug is one of the, what's known as common names, as in it's not the like Latin scientific name in the same way that we would say the convergent ladybug is a common name. But there's a, there's a project of professional insect scientists that's called the Better Common Names Project that is on purpose trying to acknowledge that a lot of times the insects that we are villainizing, we are putting the country or continent of origin in the name. And this is part of a long and often bad history of conflating people and animals from other places in a way that can be dehumanizing to people and is often xenophobic. So there's another common name for the Harlequin ladybug that's the multicolored Asian ladybug. And I don't know for sure if that's on the list of common names that may change. But I just mentioned that because I'm making an intentional choice not to use that common name because there were some really great pieces actually even during COVID, right, written about growing violence on Asian Americans here and how people were referring to the COVID virus. But this really common in the field of entomology and also with invasive plants, for example, talk about wildlife from other places in ways that can be demonizing. And then if we actually look to, for example, the history of science, there are documented cases where people from other places and immigrants were conflated with insects from those places in ways that can be demonized both people and insects. And so on purpose was trying to use this example of this particular ladybug to show that the Harlequin ladybug is not quote-unquote of here as in America, okay? But that whole conversation about where things are quote-unquote from, number one is also really complicated and philosophical because you have to pick a reference point. What does it mean for wildlife to be from a place? You actually have to set a year that you mean because the world is always changing, right, as we're talking about. And the other is to remember that the Tom Native, right? So if we're saying, well, the emergent ladybug is native, right? The term native is used in a bunch of different ways. But often, what it means is we're talking about the boundaries of a country. So for example, if different federal agencies in the US are concerned about insects or plants coming in from other places because what if they spread, they're using the boundaries of our country to think about that being an important way to think about what's coming in accidentally, right? Or we don't want people to bring something in that's beautiful and it inadvertently spreads everywhere because that's happened before. So I think one thing for us to remember, and in part because lots of gardeners care about a quote-unquote native plants too, is that the concept of nativity for plants and insects is actually very recent. And so it was really developed by botanists in England in the 1800s. And then invasion biology as a field wasn't really created and so reformalized until about 30 years ago. But so even when the idea was started, it was really botanist thinking about what is flora that is of Britain, right? So again, it started as a national identity and then what is alien quote-unquote and not from here. So I think it's important for us to remember that starting point because in practice, there are actually lots of ladybugs, both where I am, where you are all across our country that are not quote-unquote from here. Right. And we get a lot of benefits from them. So there was a great study done a little while ago from, you know, I mean, it's been several years ago now from Cornell University that looked at what are the most common ladybugs here in New York State. And many of them are not quote-unquote from here, right? If you're thinking about where they hear, let's say, 300 years ago. But many of them are naturalized and interestingly, we would not consider them to be quote-unquote invasive as in meaning that they're bad, right? So one of the things I'm trying to help, you know, reflect on in this piece is these labels that we give insects and which ones we decide get to be good and bad, right? Those are human decisions. And we can be reflective about them. We can change them. We can think critically about why is it that we are willing to spend money on a native ladybug? But why wouldn't we just promote the ladybugs that are already around us that can get us that, that pest control? And so part of this is thinking about the fact that oftentimes as gardeners, we're being given messages, right? I'm not saying that this is people doing this intentionally necessarily, but that native plants and native insects means good. And often the implication is that the reverse must be true, that if it isn't, that it must be bad, simply not true. So we get lots of benefits from insects and plants that are not considered to be native as in they are not originally from here. And as gardeners, right, they're growing lots of things that likely are not quote-unquote from here, right? And so I think that it's useful for us in particular to remember that. And then it can be important to then reflect on that's part of why some of those insects have a close relationship with those plants, right? So a classic example of this is thinking about honeybees, right? So honeybees are not quote-unquote from here, right? But they're really well adapted to pollinate lots of plants that are from the same part of the world they are, which is why they make great pollinators of apple trees, right? And then there's lots of evidence that, you know, if we have too many honeybees that can actually have a negative impact on native bees and other native pollinators in our area. And so I think that being a gardener, it's an important way for us to think about that we can have an impact. And to remember that there's lots of wildlife out there that might be moving into or through our garden. And can we be a good steward of that wildlife, right? So with ladybugs that are showing up in our garden, you know, they may not be the ones that we necessarily wanted there the most. But what are we going to do about that, right? And so I think that on one hand, this can present a lot of opportunities. So if you're someone who really cares about promoting native ladybugs and native insects, one thing you just start learning about is what they look like. So ladybugs, a lot of different things. And I think one of the challenges of talking about this is that a lot of times we don't learn a lot or not taught a lot about insects. And luckily ladybugs have distinctive coloration and marking patterns. And so in terms of being insects to learn more about, they're a little bit easier to tell a part. And that's a great thing, right? So it presents an opportunity to learn about and start paying attention to what is showing up to your garden. And so again, if we are okay with that, it becomes a way to use what's known as conservation biological control, which means that we're interested in promoting and attracting ladybugs to our gardens that are already in the landscape. And so for example, for me then in New York State, that might mean that not all of those ladybugs that are in the area around me that might try to my garden are going to be quote-unquote native. And personally, I'm okay with that because if what I'm concerned about is natural pest control is about not putting chemical pesticides in my garden, then I am getting a benefit from those beneficial insects, right? Beneficial insect means it's providing, it's a service to me. And it's providing a service that I'm not male ordering. All of those can be really good things, but I think part of why that can be controversial is it requires than thinking about which things are we interested in promoting, right? And conversations about which insects were interested in promoting or conserving is really all about human values, right? So there's no one right answer there. And so those become conversations where science can't solve them and it's really about thinking about what do we want out of ecosystems, what are we interested in protecting? And so those are really conversations that we have to have in community, right? And policy is actually a result of community conversations in practice. And so before you ask me kind of how did I start on this? And the story is very silly in practice, but there is this moment that really sticks with me about going to college, being in my first year of college, I was taking a lot of classes about natural resources management. And we were on a field trip to do something in a stream. I don't remember that part of it. But what I remember distinctly is being back at the bus basically waiting to go back to campus. And some other students and I saw a ladybug on the side of the van. And we were like, look, it's so cute. It's this ladybug. And I remember our professor distinctly walking up to us, smashing it with his open hand, saying that's invasive and walking away. And it was really fascinating because at the time I had never thought of ladybugs as having that particular label. And there are many people that view the pharlican ladybug, which is probably was in retrospect, is that particular ladybug, as invasive, as problems. And there are just a lot of ways to view ladybugs. And part of it depends on where they are. And so the other reason that the harlapan ladybug is often known to people or often viewed as a past is because even though it can get you this great past control benefit in your garden, it's also the one that may be, let's say, aggregating and congregating under your shingles or trying to into your window sill. I just saw one outside of my office the other day, right on the window. And I was like, oh, yeah, fall is starting. Here come the ladybugs trying to get inside of the heater in my office. And that might be a frustrating behavior. I think as someone who studies insects, I try to kind of zoom back out and think about the fact that there are a small number of people for whom ladybugs can present an allergy. It is true that ladybugs can bite you. One thing to remember is that that's not only true of pharlican ladybugs. So that is true of all ladybugs. All ladybugs could bite you. All ladybugs, you could potentially have an allergy too. And so again, I think it's important to remember that a lot of times the commonalities that are shared between the ones we deem good and the ones we deem bad, a lot of times they actually have the same property. Isn't just that we've thought about this set as being really good and we've sometimes kind of villainized this other set. So, you know, there are insects that can transmit diseases or there are insects that can be a public health risk. Ladybugs are not in that category. But there are people who can have, for example, a skin reaction to them if they were bitten by them. That's absolutely true. I just think it's important to remember that that's not only true of that one species. So that could be true, you know, of any ladybug that you are encounter. You might be more likely to encounter a pharlican ladybug by the fact that it may be trying to move indoors in the winter, depending on where you live. Okay, step in a way for a quick sponsor break from greenhouse megastore.com. They are your one-stop shop really for all your gardening needs. Everything to get you from seed all the way through harvest and now that we're coming into the fall, make sure you have everything you need for your cool season garden too and greenhouse megastore.com has it. We'll see you right back here after the break. One of the reasons, maybe two of the reasons that they get a bad rap, don't they have the reputation of being potentially predatory on other lady beetles versus some of the other lady beetles that we deem friendlier? Yeah, and I will say that there are multiple ladybugs that are omnivorous, right? And there are some ladybugs that are also considered crop pests, right? So I live near a wine growing area, right? And so it's certainly on California, right? Ladybugs, if they end up in grapes, can be considered a pest in vineyard environments or of wine. So I think again, it's a reminder that it really depends on what you're growing. And if a pest is also eating that thing, right, then they may be a pest to you, right? So it sort of depends on what it's doing. And so I think that it's a good reminder that these are not kind of binary categories. It sort of all depends, right? So it might depend on you and I might be growing totally different things or have other different other beneficials in our garden that we're concerned about. But that I would say is true of a lot of different generalist predators, right? So yes, generalist predators means they eat lots of different things. And so ladybugs are omnivorous, right? So they are eating soft body, let's say aphids, for example, which yes, means they eat other insects. So right, if you're concerned that they're also going to eat something else that you want to promote, that can be a problem. Now, I will say, though, that thinking more broadly about biological control and the history of biological control, the reason we like generalist predators is that the flip side of generalist predators is often like a really host specific, let's say, parasitoiter. So they're doing that something that is only going to eat one very specific food source. And there's a long history in the US of trying to really harness that power, right? If we have a crop pest, we want to find something that only targets that one insect. And there's a lot of misadventures of it going basically very poorly of it not working when we introduce new environments. But one of the challenges of those stabilizing, right, being around long term, is that that population of whatever they're eating crashes, they need another food source so they won't persist in the environment. And so it's meant that longer term, generalist predators tend to be more effective in a lot of cases because they can eat multiple things, right? And so it is just one of the trade-offs of the fact that they are really good predators is yes, part of what makes them really effective predators able to do pest control in the landscape is that they can eat multiple things, right? So I would say that it's, there's no silver bullet, right? In that case. And so that is one of the reasons too that I think it's worth thinking about bio control in this framework generally. And with Ladybugs was part of my goal writing the article was that often we like to think about biological control as being the opposite of chemical pest control. But I think that when we try to buy something and release it, we're actually using the same the same framework as when we just buy a spray and try to use a spray, right? And so it's not to say that either one of those has to be good or bad, but I think it's an important reminder that it's not the opposite. It's very much an extension of that same idea. And so I think that it's important for us to remember that Ladybugs are also not silver bullets. And so you notice even silver bullet, right? Is a military kind of, very massive, but it's for us to remember that, yes, Ladybugs can be really effective predators, but it is not a one and done solution, right? So it's part of a set of management tools of how we're managing pests in our garden. And so we shouldn't really look to anything as a silver bullet per se. And when something is a silver bullet, there may be unintended consequences, right? So I think about that there are some chemicals that are bio-sides, right? Meaning they will literally kill everything. It's like, I guess that's a silver bullet, but that would not be great for your garden either, right? So there's always this tradeoff between targeted interventions and ones that are going to be broader. And so I think that we just need to remember that Ladybugs fit more into that idea of it is not one and done. And then certainly, even if it feels like buying and releasing Ladybugs is one and done here locally in my little garden, right? To remember that connection back to our real ecosystem somewhere else. Right. You know, the other thing about the Harlequin Ladybiddle is we, I rarely hear it referred to by that term versus the much more common reference to Asian Ladybiddle, you know? And it definitely has a bad rap, whatever you call it, but that's that's the term I hear 99% of the time. And the fear is from the gardeners who really have a dislike for it is that they're displacing the Native Ladybiddles. But without regard to the fact that there are other, you know, there are other omnivores out there doing the same thing. And it's not just the Asian Ladybiddles, but they're getting a really bad rap because of that reason and the reason you mentioned earlier is that they share our homes in the winter time. Yeah, I mean, in the terms of the displacement thing, I will say that the science on this is not that clear. So I purposely, I figured this was coming and I made sure to look this up so we could talk about it. So there was a review that was done back in 2007 of what Ladybugs are in the US in Canada and how, which different ones have been introduced. And so the best research that exists to date, like, no, from entomologists was that there have been 179 Ladybugs species introduced in the US in Canada. And 27 of those have become established. And then some of that same data found there was no difference in the number of Ladybugs overall when you're comparing before and after the Harlequin Ladybug becoming established. So I think that any time we're talking about new life in an ecosystem and the impacts it might have, those are definitely important questions. And I think the best thing we can do is say, what is the evidence that we have about that? So my concern with that always is, what is the evidence that we have? And there is not consensus evidence that it is like, for example, a one-to-one displacement. And then I think the other thing that's important for us to remember as gardeners is that gardens are, if I can say this, not natural, right? Like there's nothing natural about my lawn. There's nothing natural about my garden either, right? And so I think that sometimes fear mongering about what's natural or what should be, we need to remember that we're part of that conversation, right? So the reason that the plants in my garden are not of here is that I planted them there, right? And so what's showing up and what isn't showing up is about what all of us are doing with the choices that we're making about what we're choosing to promote and not in the world around us. And there's a scholar that I really want to mention because it's a really useful framework and the work is really excellent. Dr. Jennifer Bernata-Grens, who is an indigenous scientist who studies invasive plants, and they have a framework that they refer to as, relationally preferred species. And I think this is really important because they're making multiple points in their work on this, one of which is everyone, since the dawn of time, has been preferring some species over others, right? Is managing resources and what you select for. And this paradigm is also in their work trying to push back on these ideas about what is supposedly belonging here or not, to point out that oftentimes when we talk about what ladybugs or other life forms are, quote, unquote, of here or considered native, that it tends to be using a baseline that ignores and erases indigenous management of ecosystems, right? Indigenous management ecosystem has got on for millennia. And so, relationally preferred species can refer to all different ways that people manage for resources that may not be farming, right? So, thinking about how people manage fisheries, thinking about how people have done, you know, burning patterns or cultivated different fruit and nut trees, right? There are, there are millennia of example of indigenous communities preferring some species over others, right? This is not new in that sense. And so, remembering that there's a long history of this, but also that that can help take us out of this good and bad binary that is a choice to use that we don't need to use, right? So, it's a way I think that we can think about, it's okay to have preferences, it's okay to say I want to grow this thing here and I really want to eat this and I don't eat these other things. And that's actually what we're doing by gardening, right? Is where we're promoting, for example, some plants over others. And when we're managing our garden, we are likely preferring some insects over others, right? We're preferring ones that don't eat the plants that we want to eat generally. So, I think it's really important to to go to other thinkers who are helping us think past this good and bad binary. And I mentioned before, there are some good examples of this during even the beginning of COVID. Jenny Liu wrote for PsyCountry News at the beginning of the pandemic. Wrote this really excellent article that was called M.I. an invasive species. And they wrote about being an Asian person who was feeling vilified in part due to all of the anti-Asian, anti-Asian American violence, but also that this was the time in which there was a lot of fear mongering about murder hornets, if you remember this a couple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, also a common name that was being used the time to include its point of origin, right? So, again, this is, I would say I'm using the term murder hornet then on purpose, right? To not include that. But one of the, again, reasons to consider the farm that comes from this is that there are people all over the country who were assuming that any hornet they saw was a murder hornet, right? And so even if you're someone who thinks that you're trying to promote conservation, there was harm done to native was and hornets that live here that people might think they actually want to promote because they were buying into this fear mongering that can be very xenophobic, but also that oftentimes people don't have the full information to make those decisions in manners of ecosystem. So, there were different explainers that had to be put out about, hey, if you think you saw a murder hornet number one, unless you were basically in Washington state, no, you didn't to remember that this kind of generating fear mongering buzz can lead to misinformation. And so I think that oftentimes as gardeners, we may not be aware that we are actually targets of misinformation. And so, you know, you're mentioning about the different terms that are used for the Harlequin ladybug, but one of the things that really struck me and I honestly, it's saddened me in this research was that there are a lot of different terms right not just used for ladybugs, but how they're referred to. And so some people and agencies do refer to the Harlequin ladybug as invasive and really view it right as this is a displacement issue. Other scientists and entomologists will refer to it as naturalized, meaning right, it's here now it's established, we do get benefits from it. Another term for that is adventive, which means again that it's another scientific term, but it basically means that it's here now it wasn't a from here, but there are wild populations of it. And in our case, we're getting a benefit from it. So maybe that's one way to think about it. But one of the things I noticed was that some state cooperative extensions were actually saying, well, there are real ladybugs, but the Harlequin ladybug is not the real ladybug. And that's actually misinformation. That is misinforming people because like we started talking about, ladybugs is a taxonomic group. It's a family of beetles. And so just because we don't like one of them or some of them doesn't mean you get to say these are the real ones and these aren't. That's not actually true. But I will say again that there's a lot of information, especially on social media, that is for people who like plants or people who like gardening. And I think it's important to remember that not all of it is accurate, but also that sometimes even scientists can be agents of that kind of misinformation. So that can create challenges, especially for people who study and want to promote conservation of insects to having conversations with people. Because like you said, there's a lot of information that people say, well, I heard this about it. And now that we're getting to be near the fall, I'm sure people will be hearing again about Harlequin ladybugs and what they might be doing. And that's why I think it's actually good to talk about this before people might see them to remember that yes, it might be a nuisance. And it's totally okay to not want them in your house. But that doesn't mean that they're going to be a health problem. It doesn't mean you need to be scared of them. And so I think that it's important to remember to share accurate, not fear-based information about managing any kind of insect, right? And so that also includes ladybugs and what we're thinking about our garden and our homes too. Yeah. I guess there's just two things I want to just kind of wrap up on. And one is to, you know, you talked about, well, we began this conversation when we got into the lady beetle discussion, you know, bringing in the ones from the Sierra Nevada's, purchasing them versus promoting the ones that are already there. As an entomologist, as a gardener, Caitlin, give us your two cents on, you know, what we can do to promote those ones that are already there or to bring in more of the ones it would naturally come to our gardens. So I think there's things you can do directly and indirectly. And far there's no one to say that is that people may think, well, if I don't have a lot of land or I don't have a big garden or maybe I only have a container garden, right? That doesn't mean that you don't have a role that to play in beneficial insect conservation if you want it. So I think it's really important to remember that there's things that everyone can do. So it's even as simple as just general energy conservation and resource conservation, right? When you are saving energy and you are wasting less water, you are broadly contributing to, you know, the conservation of resources and mitigating climate change and all of that is going to help all beneficial insects, right? So it's really important to remember there are steps that you can take that are far outside of directly managing your garden that are going to be really important for beneficial insects. And I think that those are the hardest ones, maybe some minutes to talk through because they're just term ones. But those are things that we can really build collective action at scale. And part of why they're important to me is that so much of talking about gardening might assume that you have to have access to land and who has access to land is not equal, right? And there's especially in the US, a history of Nijinist displacement, of redlining and segregated communities that really affects who might have a home or a home garden or access to space. You know, there's enormous housing crises, for example, all over our country. And so it's really important to remember that you do not need to have land or own land or anything like that to be an agent of conservation to do things for insects and also for wildlife. And so some of that is just everything that you do to reduce your ecological footprint, you know, buying things secondhand, just reducing the amount of stuff you're buying new generally. All of that is actually a way to promote the health of beneficial insects and ecosystems. And so I think that that might feel a lot less satisfying maybe than just saying if we only bought the right product, right? Like because that's a big and hard thing to do. But all of that stuff is actually going to help all of us as people and communities and also actually all those insect communities. I do think part of it is just what we talked about, which is learning more about what's around you. Is that why we can appreciate it? But also that we can identify it so that we know what's there. Yeah. That you're better than informed to have conversations yourself and with other people so that it's not fear based, you know, misinformation about what may or may not be out there. You'll know for yourself by being able to know, oh, these are the things that are visiting my garden, right? And so there are lots of great resources and places that are more common and easily accessible now like I naturalist. Yeah. Well, can get help identifying insects and get some more verification that they might be looking at something. Again, because it can be tricky on the open internet to just know that you're getting the right information, but to do it in a way that's vetted, there are lots of great resources from places like cooperative extension, including, you know, which is in every state. And also that some cooperative extensions will also have identifying services where for a small fee if there's something you really want identified, that you can actually pay someone to do that work for you. So if you are really concerned about something, right, you can make sure that you have the right information. And so those are pieces that again, don't require you buy anything necessarily. So, you know, helping just conserve generally, buying less stuff generally, learning more about the world around you. Those are things that all of us can do that I think are really exciting that can help promote ladybugs that we're interested in conserving. In terms of things that are just more directly in your garden, right, it's thinking about what is it that you want to help promote and what do they need throughout their whole life cycle. So, for example, like one of the general things that we say if you want to promote pollinators you around is just do you have flowering resources? Oftentimes the things that can help beneficial insects have shelter in the winter means being a lazier gardener in the sense of leaving leaf litter and other things. So it might actually mean less work for you. And then you get the benefit of knowing that you're helping create habitat over winter for things that you want to promote. Yeah. I love both of your answers. This part two of your answer I was expecting to hear but you even embellished on that important, important ways with the it's okay to be a lazy gardener in the fall because we're actually helping provide those habitats for overwintering. I think it's okay to be a lazy gardener year round. I want to, you know, really like sometimes I have lands that go to flower and I'm like, okay, well, that bolt did but now it's a resource, right? And then I can just see everything that visits that aruvila that radis that flowered. And so I think that there I think being a lazy gardener is underrated. I'm here to promote that. That's funny. You say that, you know, having my garden videoed and on TV a lot for my show, I feel the need to explain why I've let these flowers bolt, you know, my brassicas are blooming in May and June and like why did he let that happen? And it's because they're one of the few flowers in bloom for the pollinators to visit when they don't have any other options to do. And that wasn't necessarily being lazy, although that's the term we're using. It's being intentional. And yeah, yeah, no, in either way, you know, I know what you mean by that, but that's fine. But what I wanted to also say is thank you for the first part of your answer because that is so broad reaching. We hear the term climate change all the time now. And it's it's becoming like sustainability wise. It's just a term that just doesn't seem to have the teeth in it that used to have. But it's still no less important. But for you to provide that application as a gardener as to why as if we needed one more reason, hey, if you want to benefit those beneficial insects or the ones that we deem to be that in our garden, think more about conservation and, you know, less resource use and things like that. So that was an that was an angle I didn't see coming, but I'm so glad that you went there. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. And I think again, it's just important to me because like you mentioned, if people are starting out gardening or gardening means all kinds of things, right? Like you don't have to have space outside or own your land to be a gardener. And I think probably both you and I want as many people who want to embrace being a gardener to do that, right? And feel empowered to do that. And so I think again, that as a former community gardener, where it's not quote unquote my land that I'm helping cultivate a garden. There are so many things that I can do off site that are going to help the insects. And the services that I want to promote that it doesn't need to happen on site and does not require ownership. And I think it's just so important because a lot of times when we talk about stewardship, the default assumptions assume that you have to do something in your yard. And that can give the impression that the more yard or the more garden you have, the more moral you're being by doing the good thing there. I think it's really important for us to remember that less is more and more is more to you, right? So I think that the absence of buying something or having something can be just as powerful, right? And so I think it's just really important for us to own that and to think about all those indirect things. I'm talking to you in a second-hand t-shirt, right? So reducing the amount of resources that's going into that is also a way. And I think that probably a lot of the people that we're thinking about are already taking those steps. And they just haven't thought about how that is actually helping promote beneficial. You're probably already doing things that are beneficial for ladybugs and other insects. And so I think it's owning that. Like you said, it's not lazy, it's intentional. Yeah. Such great information. Thank you so much for all of this. And you just clearly live and breathe this. You are very enthusiastic about sharing this information and your knowledge is impressive and your ability to communicate it even more so. So thank you. Oh, that's no kind of you. Yeah. You know, I mentioned you at the start that my job now as an environmental studies professor is to help get students who are becoming scientists, right? And engineers to think about these human pieces, that to me is the most fun. I get to work with a lot of environmental science students, right? And they want to save the world. And so part of my goal is to say to them, what we think we want to do is really all of us bringing all of our human values and ideas and goals to that. And so we just need to take a step back and think about it. And that will help us be more intentional as we go out and try to do these good things in the world around us. I loved Caitlin's enthusiasm and her passion for the topics we discussed today. She is obviously very well versed on the topics and it's easy to see that she's given great thought to everything we talked about today. Now, if you'd like to go back and listen to this episode again and or review the show notes and pictures that Caitlin provided, you can do that from our website joegardiner.com and look for the podcast tab. This is episode number 449. You could also watch this episode on our YouTube channel, which is joegardiner TV. And we will have the links and extensive references to all the pertinent information in the show notes. I have just one announcement for you today. Last week, I mentioned that we have a recent video that we posted on our YouTube channel joegardiner TV. It's getting a lot of interest and it's about my big new raised bed garden rebuild project. It's a behind the scene story of how the project started from literally a demolition of my existing rotted raised bed garden to a total rebuild and replacement of new beds. And they are very different from the original ones. That's part of what's got this video going so crazy. But we take you through the steps of creating the new beds and the hurdles along the way. And the bonus is we also have a free download of the plans, which includes a spreadsheet that you can input some of your own information. And it creates the cost for what you want to build using the same design that I used. And it will tell you everything you need from the amount and the size of all the lumber, the quantity and size of the various screws and even how much soil that you need to fill the number of beds that you're building. And a huge shout out to my friend David Park for creating this incredible resource. If this sounds interesting to you, be sure to watch the video on our YouTube channel again, joegardiner TV. And for the free plans, just head over to our website to get it. And again, it's free. And you can do that at joegardiner.com slash raised bed plans. No spaces. Again, joegardiner.com slash raised bed plans. So that's going to do it for today. Thanks as always to Amy Princess, Brendan O'Reilly and Christine LaFond. And thank you for joining me today. My goal for every single episode is to help you take the guesswork out of gardening by teaching you the why do behind the how to so that you can become a better, smarter, more confident gardener. And I'll be back here again next Thursday for another episode of the joegardiner show. And I look forward to having you right back here to join me for that. Until then, have a great week. Take care. And I'll see you back here really soon. Thanks for listening to the joegardiner show. The podcast where it's all about gardening and learning to grow like a pro. No experience required. For more information, podcasts, and how-to videos, visit us online at joegardiner.com.