Pesticide Reduction
Eliminating or minimizing the use of pesticides (insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) in your landscape is a beneficial move to help remove harmful chemicals from your environment. Most commonly used insecticides are indiscriminant, that is, they are designed to kill a broad spectrum of organisms. When applied outdoors, insecticides end up killing not only the "bad" insects, but also the beneficial ones, such as bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. Pesticides also eliminate beneficial species, such as spiders and wasps, which actually prey upon the undesirable species. The negative influence of insecticides does not end there. Anything eating the poisoned insects such as amphibians, lizards, birds and mammals will also ingest these toxins. The multiplied effect of insecticides on wildlife in your landscape is easy to imagine.
How can planting a native landscape help remove these harmful chemicals from our environment? Simply put, plants native to a specific region were able to survive the ever-present onslaught of local pests by evolving their own protective measures. In many cases, our native plants produce their own chemical defenses, thereby becoming unpalatable to most hungry herbivores. Unlike non-natives, our hardy native plants are rarely plagued by major pest problems, thus eliminating the need for pesticides. Furthermore, if you have a healthy native landscape in place, you will be fostering the existence of all those beneficial species that are members of the local food web. This interacting community will provide you with long-term biological control of problem species.
As you prepare to move into a new home, this is a good time to properly dispose of any pesticides that you no longer use. Please, contact your city or county government to determine if they participate in household hazardous waste collection or disposal programs. You may visit the City of Lubbock's website at http://solidwaste.ci.lubbock.tx.us/hhw/hhw.htm for more information.