Summer can bring out some of the nastiest, vilest bugs. It's the gardener that often finds them, usually by accident and often accompanied by a painful sting. One example is the saddleback caterpillar, a striking creature in it's larval form, developing into a moth of little beauty, dull brown with few markings. The caterpillar is bright green with a brown saddle on its back, designed to look like an eye and scare birds. Fine spines run along its body and cover the small horns at each end. These spines will sting and leave an irritating welt. As painful as any bee sting, but slow to develop, the gardener has usually moved onto the next plant in the garden before they realize there's pain. This pain will spread and it seems like the more you rub, the worse it feels. If you rubbed up against one and made contact with many of the spines, the pain can be nauseating. The best relief seems to be Benadryl spray and I keep it in my garden bag, close by and handy when I'm working my way through a lot of perennials. The host plants for saddlebacks are apple, aster, grape, maple, oak, dogwood, elm and viburnum. From small eggs they travel and feed on just about anything. I often find them on iris, peonies, astilbe and echinacea. Look for chewed leaves and then carefully use something (stick or clippers) to lift the leaf and look beneath before pruning or deadheading. Where there is one, there are often more. Once I found 18 in one astilbe patch. The saddleback caterpillar tends to be a late summer and fall pest. Their damage to leaves is minor, their sting is major.

Another insect that seems to be more prevalent this year is the velvet ant. The female scurries along the ground, back legs are higher then front, she looks like she's jacked up in the back. Her furry body is stripped with bright red hairs and smaller black stripes. Not an ant but a solitary wasp, only the female runs on the ground. The males have wings and can fly, something I have never seen. Their sting is said to be the most painful of any insect, in fact another common name for them is cow killer. The bright red is clearly a warning sign and the good thing is they will avoid you, running the other way when they sense movement. The quick scurrying is a search for wasp and bumblebee nests. The female will lay her eggs in the cells of their pupa and they become a host for her young. With our extraordinarily hot summer, I have seen more than any other year. They can also be found in deserts, so it should come as no surprise that they have liked our heat. The good news is that their desire to avoid us means the gardener is pretty safe. I have never been stung and I know of no one else that has. Now a barefoot gardener might be in more danger, take heed!