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I have come to the sad conclusion that when you see a lovely healthy verdant garden, the way the owner has achieved it is almost certainly, “neonicotinoids”.
in reply to Sarah Brown

That's one reason I'll never have a "lovely healthy verdant garden" on my property. What I do have (and lots of) are native plants (which my neighbors call weeds) that feed native pollinators.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Ours is just lots of rain and the right plants. I never use chemicals ever.
in reply to Cyberspice

@Cyberspice problem is on a balcony, once you get an infestation, they will kill everything.

Everything.

The predators never make it up here, and if you buy them in, they eat a few and then bigger off.

in reply to Sarah Brown

The plants on the balcony in Tenerife are the kind that you can ignore because I’m rubbish at remembering them. Cacti and the like. They seem to do well on a diet of abuse and neglect. Local wildlife is cicadas and lizards.
in reply to Cyberspice

@Cyberspice The mealybugs killed my cacti and other succulents.

I had to start again. They utterly destroyed them.

in reply to Cyberspice

@Cyberspice closed ecosystem. Predators won’t stay put, so without pesticide I lose everything to them.