The concept of pest is entirely a human notion. There are no pests in nature. For humans, pests get to be pests when they teeter out of balance with their environment and do things we don’t want them to do…
Gardeners tend to be fairly level-headed folks, but when insects threaten, the garden gloves come off and the boxing gloves go on. It is a gut reaction…
When these sorts of insects come to call, as often as not the gardener will first seek out the quick cure (whether mechanical or chemical) without thinking too much about the consequences of the action. This is a self-taught, cultural response, which is basically out of sync with the way a garden ought to work and all of nature, in fact, tries to work…
Unfortunately, when we haul out the pesticides we not only must face the battle, we usually end up prolonging the war we meant to end.