• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Harlequins Gardens

Harlequins Gardens

Boulder's specialist in well-adapted plants

We’re Open for the Season! Thursday – Sunday 9 – 5 in March!

Gift Memberships & Gift Certificates  – available online!
See our seasonal hours and address, below.

Read our latest e-newsletter!

 

FacebookPinterestInstagram
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Staff
    • Display Gardens
    • Why the Name “Harlequin’s” Gardens?
    • Sustainability
    • Policy on Pesticides Including Neonicotinoids
    • Careers
  • What We Offer
    • Products
    • Plants
    • Gift Certificates
    • Membership
  • Plants
    • Annuals
    • Bulbs
    • Fruits
    • Groundcovers
    • Herbs
    • Natives
    • Ornamental Grasses
    • Perennials
      • Plants for Pollinators List
    • Roses
    • Vegetables
      • Tomato Starts
      • Pepper Starts
      • Other Vegetable Starts
      • Fall Vegetable Starts
      • Garlic
    • Xeriscape
  • Resources
    • Mikl’s Articles
    • Handouts
    • Newsletters
    • Links
  • Garden Tours
    • Virtual Garden Tours
    • Submit Your Garden!
  • Events
  • Classes
  • Blog
  • Wholesale
    • Wholesale Mailing List Sign Up
    • Who Qualifies
    • Wholesale Availability
  • Contact
Home | Blog | Safe Pest Management for Bees, Kids, and the Planet

Safe Pest Management for Bees, Kids, and the Planet

The Good News is that out of about 900,000 insect species currently living on our planet, only 1% to 3% are pests. We do not need systemic neonicotinoids (neonics) or any toxic pesticides to grow plants well. The solution is to employ human attention, biodiversity, nutrient-dense soils, application of nontoxic management, and tolerance.

The Bad News is that most people and most nurseries don’t know the good news. They believe the chemical companies when they tell us that we need to fear and attack insects and fungi as enemies.

There’s More Good News: Concerned citizens have been contacting growers and nurseries and asking them whether they are using systemic neonic poisons in their plants and soils, and this is having a powerful effect. These companies now know that we care, and we will not buy plants grown with neonics. This is leading to some positive changes in the industry.


The Particulars of Non-toxic Pest Management:

  • Pest Control is not a realistic goal. Nature is powerful and inventive, and she abhors a vacuum. Whatever new poison we make, insects and pathogens will adapt, leading to the creation of super weeds and super bugs, or creating an opening for new pest species to move in.
  • We can accomplish Pest Management and balance. How? Always leave 10-20% of the pests to attract and feed beneficial insects. Use non-toxic management products, cultural practices, and mechanical solutions (see below).
  • Think like Mother Nature: Expect predation and, if possible, grow more than you need.
  • Evaluate pest damage 3 days in a row. Is the damage minor or serious? If it’s minor, let nature’s predators keep the balance. If the damage is major, try non-toxic solutions that do not kill or weaken beneficial insects, bees, and humans. Learn to recognize the beneficial insects at work.
  • There are many earth-friendly pest management approaches:
    1. Cultural: Examples are – growing the right plants in the right place and planting at the right time.
    2. Nutritional: Healthy soil grows healthy plants that attract fewer pests.
    3. Environmental: Growing diverse plants that support beneficial insects, critters and birds that help control pests by predation.
    4. Mechanical: Barriers like row cover fabric, mesh, or screen; copper strips or wool mulch to deter slugs, etc.
    5. Repellants & Anti-feedants: neem, garlic, cayenne, cinnamon, etc.
    6. Lethal but Non-Poisonous Products: horticultural oils that kill insects by suffocation; Soap solutions that kill insects by desiccation; strong herbs like thyme, rosemary, garlic sprayed directly on pests leave no residual.
  • Occasionally our solutions don’t work: A plague of locusts or some newly introduced bug like Emerald Ash Borer may descend on our locale, but it’s not the end of the world. Accepting our losses and choosing different plants are far better than poisoning the planet for our children, killing bees, beneficial insects, and birds, and weakening our own health.
  • Neighborhood education: learning what works from each other.

Nature is a system that supports Life. If we want to align ourselves with the Power of Nature and if we want to be on the long-term winning side, then we support life, too. The age of warring against Life is over. The Old Paradigm is Kill the Enemies, The 21st Century Paradigm is:

Support Life, Learn from Life, Partner with Nature and each other

We can do this! Harlequin’s Gardens has been poison-free for 30 years. Here are links to some more detailed articles on this subject, also written by Mikl Brawner.

Gardening without Chemicals 

Gardening from the Heart

Gardening without Fear

And from the National Pesticide Information Center, Beneficial Insects

sidebar

Blog Sidebar

Sign-up for E-Newsletters!

Sign-up for our weekly e-newsletters to receive empowering gardening tips, ecological insights, and to keep up on happenings at Harlequin’s Gardens — such as flash sales and “just in” plants. We never share customer’s addresses!

We do not ship plants!

Our plants are for sale ONLY at our Boulder location. We DO NOT ship plants. Come visit us!

Hours by Season

MARCH HOURS
Thursday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

APRIL-OCTOBER HOURS
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

Mondays, CLOSED

Footer

Contact Us

303-939-9403 (Retail)
staff@nullharlequinsgardens.com

4795 North 26th St
Boulder, CO 80301

Sign-up for E-Newsletters!

Sign-up for our weekly e-newsletters to receive empowering gardening tips, ecological insights, and to keep up on happenings at Harlequin’s Gardens — such as flash sales and “just in” plants. We never share customer’s addresses!

Map

Our Hours

Seasonally, MARCH to OCTOBER.
MARCH HOURS:
Thursday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

APRIL-OCTOBER HOURS:
Tuesday-Sunday, 9AM-5PM

Mondays, CLOSED

The plants we grow are organically grown. All the plants we sell are free of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides.