You already know I’m not a killer. I let aphids feast on my rosebuds, I shoo mosquitoes unless I feel unfairly plagued, I don’t hate wasps, and I try to redirect ants’ marches across the kitchen. I wasn’t always so accommodating; I have come to understand that Nature has an elaborate plan. Insects are an essential link in the food chain from plants on up. To wipe out one species, say mosquitos, is to make life unlivable for something most of us find more endearing, such as swallows, purple martins, and bats.
It isn’t easy to share the garden and tolerate the resulting damage unless we see how everything fits. I applaud the syrphid flies I see pollinating my flowers because I know they survived their larval stage by eating aphids. --It’s a good thing for them the aphids found my rose buds so delicious. And wouldn’t you know, those buds were never too damaged to open. Sometimes nature really does stay balanced.

All bets are off when it comes to exotic species accidentally or deliberately introduced. The Japanese beetles currently skeletonizing the leaves of roses, zinnias, and every other thing they get their wretched maws on, hitchhiked on an shipment of Japanese iris back in 1912 and have no natural predators here. There isn’t a single insect or bird in this part of the world that finds them delicious or nutritious so it’s up to us to slow their population growth. One way to do battle is to drown each sticky wriggling individual in a can of soapy water. (Some people squish them between their fingers. Gross.) If we were willing to reduce the size of our lawns and could convince our neighbors to do the same we’d have a shot at winning the war by starving them out at the grub stage.

A couple of weeks ago brown moths were all over the place during the day, trying their best to fly down the back of my shirt and up my nose. Gypsy moths. I haven’t seen this year’s damage first hand but by all accounts the West Bay and northern part of the state were hit hard this summer and it stands to reason, given the influx of moths, that this area might be next.

Gypsy moths are another import, intentional in this case, as a possible silkworm alternative, but were accidentally released in Massachusetts back in the 1880s. The caterpillars favor oak trees but will feast on almost anything else including, oddly, white pines, and most birds won’t touch them. We have to step in. Unfortunately, the recommended pesticide overshoots its target. Oak trees in particular host hundreds of native caterpillar species, bird food all. To kill those species, even unintentionally, is to wreak havoc on the bird population. No one likes a silent spring.

I prefer to keep fingers crossed that nature strikes a balance again. If we get a wet spring next year a killer fungus, introduced for the purpose, will hit its mark and take the wind out of the gypsy moths’ sail. In the meantime this fall and winter, look for fuzzy camelhair-coat egg sacs and unleash your inner killer by scraping them off whatever they’re attached to (rocks, tree trunks, lawn furniture) and drop them in a can of soapy water. Since each sac contains hundreds of eggs, you’ll make a decent dent in the population.

If and when our trees are eaten, we should nurse them back to health by making sure they get enough water (they need about an inch per week) while they leaf out again. The latest update from the URI Extension Service says, “a healthy tree can survive multiple years of defoliations less than 50 percent of their crown provided other stressors, such as droughty conditions, don’t also occur.”
I’m not comfortable being any species’ only natural enemy but unfortunately sometimes that’s the price we have to pay for enjoying a world of plant choices in our gardens.

Kristin Green is the horticulturist at Mount Hope Farm and author of 'Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter'. Follow her blog at trenchmanicure.com.