Its not always easy to be an organic gardener. Even committed organic gardeners sometimes long to spray herbicide on goutweed or pesky poison ivy. When Japanese beetles or rose chafers arrive in throngs just before your garden party, you may suffer an urge for the good old days the time before you understood that spraying an insecticide would kill beneficial bugs along with the bad, aggravating your pest problems. But there are also problems that are more easily addressed with organic solutions.
Each winter, the Ecological Landscaping Association (www.ela. org) holds a conference and eco-marketplace where researchers, landscapers, gardeners and environmentalists meet to share knowledge and ideas. This year, one of the presentations I liked best was by Dr. Richard Casagrande of the University of Rhode Island, who spoke on biocontrol of invasive species. He explained that for some problems, organic controls work better than chemical controls.
Casagrande said that when gardeners hear that foreign species of insects have been introduced to help control invasive plants like purple loosestrife, there is a knee-jerk reaction: Great. And when theyve finished eating the...