beneficial insects, good for the earth

Gachina Landscape Management often employs “beneficial insects” to enable landscapes to thrive while minimizing the use of pesticides.

Both good and bad insects affect the ecosystem. Taking advantage of a beneficial insect such as the nematode keeps other, more damaging insects at bay, allowing plants in a defined landscape to grow strong and healthy.

Skillful manipulation of beneficial insects is an important element of integrated pest management, or IPM, a wide-ranging horticultural strategy that aims to avoid injecting chemicals into the environment.

IPM’s approach uses natural methods to control unwanted pests, such as:

• Installing plants into a landscape that attract beneficial pests such as nematodes, lady beetles, soldier bugs, praying mantises, mealybug destroyers, and aphid parasites into a landscape.
• Designing landscapes to include plantings that resist harmful pests. Gachina recommends plants, flowers and shrubs that are native to California. They do well against predators and typically require less water than non-native plants.
• Irrigation practices that limit weeds and root diseases that encourage harmful pests.
• Washing off and pruning plants on a regular basis.

Learn more about beneficial insects and their role in the ecosystem. Call Gachina Landscape Management today at 650-853-0400. Our service area includes Palo Alto, San Jose, the San Francisco Bay Area, East Bay, Fremont, and Monterey.

Why gachina has a ‘beneficial insect’ philosophy

Our team uses IPM and beneficial insects in our landscaping practices as an alternative to insecticides for three reasons:

• Protecting clients from the harmful effects of pesticides is our priority. Even today, the effects on our bodies from years of chemicals accumulating in our environment is not fully understood.
• Insecticides disrupt the ecosystem with indiscriminate killing of both good and bad insects. When good insects are destroyed, harmful pests can return after an initial spraying to inflict even greater damage on flowers, plants, trees and shrubs.
• Evidence indicates that pesticides are becoming less effective as insects develop resistance to the chemicals over time.

Our expert employees are custodians of the environment. Call 650-853-0400 today to talk to us about the use of beneficial insects and integrated pest management on commercial landscapes.

We provide landscape management services to the following areas: