Passion: Gardening and its pests.......

'If prey is around, predator can't be far behind'.......that's the exact  scenario with gardening...

As soon as you plant, an immense number of pests and bugs, some visible, some microscopic move in to ravage your fruits of labor...
Bougainvillea looper on bougainvillea...

Caterpillar on geranium.........

Miner on petunia......

Aphids on mandevilla...

Aphids on hibiscus.......

Thrips on hibiscus...

Miner worm on rose.....

A fat caterpillar was munching away on my cucumber leaves...could have been a good lunch for bug-eating birds..

See the condition of the leaves...trails of feeding by the bug...loss of chlorophylls are by some bug-secreted proteases..

A hopper...it gave me chills....hot weather favors these insects...
I have seen crepe myrtle trees in Las Vegas loaded with pests..what if they flocked here!

Another hopper..

Another..

You get a bloom, and then it unfurls like this...annoyance!

No clue what it is...looks like a tick...

Some rogue is cutting away my hibiscus buds...

Also, nibbling them...I know its a grasshopper...I caught it red-handed..however, eliminating the hoppers is not easy, for they jump away...

A mealybug on the cucumber..

Looks like some kind of insect eggs on the pea leaves..

Some aphids perhaps...on my camellia..

Butterflies.......

Thinking how are the winged-bugs are harming crop...well, the adult form sips nectar but it lays eggs on the leaves, which hatch into larvae, which quickly gorge on the leaves...

Is it a honeybee or what? Looks scary with those big eyes..

Fungal attack on cucumber.....root is split at the middle...so, it falls off.....

Mushrooms/fungus...

Cockroaches..

Snails and slugs on rose, caterpillar on coleus, fungal attack on marigold and calla lily....the list is long....

A lizard..

But like all hurdles in life, they ought not deter an aspiring gardener..........
Actually, the relation is complex..they do serve as pollinators too...you will know what they they mean, when the flowers never turn into fruits for lack of pollens...

A bee..

I despise the detrimental chemical pesticides...so I have a squirt-bottle full of concentrated detergent solution to kill the menacing aphids.........and the miners, caterpillars and snails are eliminated by just cutting the twigs harboring them........as for fungal rot, avoiding over-watering seems good enough...