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I'm just back from a weekend visiting an old friend in Banwell, near Weston-Super-Mare. Always envious of his rambling house and large walled garden, we got to talking over garden wildlife and the troubles of traipsing fox dung through the kitchen. Disgusting, even if the fox was...

A few weeks ago I wrote about moving a bumblebee nest from a friend's garden. At the end of the blog I mentioned that I'd found a wax moth in the nest.Wax moth is a native, natural predator of the bumblebee, but it's one of its biggest enemies

, Hampshire and Sussex when it first appeared in London around 2005.I've now given up noting when I see it, since this is inevitably many times a day. A flash of orange - no it's not a painted lady, it's the tiger. It's not a true day-flying moth, since

A means by which a selected natural mechanism (eg, parasitism, predation, disease) is used to control pests. Has the advantage of minimising the legal, health and environmental hazards associated with chemical control.

Froth, resembling spit, produced by the larvae of froghopper insects, to provide them with thermal and moisture control, and to hide them from predators. The larvae suck sap from the plant, but generally do little harm.

. First, they need shelter and warmth to aid (and speed) the complex physiological transition from larva to adult. Second, they need to get out of the way of things that might eat them. For the harlequin ladybird, a major predator is another harlequin

Protected from predators and the risk of dehydration inside its moist ball of bubbles, the juvenile yellow-green froghopper (or spittle bug) is busy sucking plant sap. It's quite harmless unless it's attacking the shoot tips, which can result

lacewings have started to seek out basic B with no B in the old out building near my house. Their young or larval stages are such voracious predators of aphids that I'm happy to have their parents to stay any time! Quite often they turn up in the house too

, the sweet sticky substance that aphids excrete. Ants are known to defend aphids against predators in return for a harvest of honeydew.Container-grown plants start to wilt. When you check the pot you notice ant tunnels, and that compost has been moved away

of the plant, attracting black sooty mould, which inhibits photosynthesis and deprives the plant of energy.Young tender growth is vulnerable to aphid attack. These tiny insects (1mm-7mm long) are usually green or black and breed fast, smothering the plant