By CHERYL KLINKER

With the arrival of spring, many of us are tempted to get the sprays out; for our lawns, for our trees and shrubs, and for around the house. The fear of the emergence of swarms of insects and sprouting weeds is a great motivator to protect all the work you have invested your time and money into, but before you run to your local garden store for a battery of herbicides and pesticides, please read this first.

The first question to ask is do I have an insect pest? Some beneficial insects may look similar to harmful ones. Upon closer observation, you may find they are not really attacking your plants, but instead may be feeding on other insects, or they are using your plant as a staging ground for attracting mates.

Another example are some of the hover flies. You may think you have a colony of wasps or some kind of stinging insects, but they may be harmless hover flies mimicking the menacing insects because it saves them from getting eaten by birds.

Use of good cultural practices will decrease your pesty populations. Usually insects are attacking a plant that is already sick and is secreting the chemicals that attract the parasites who seek out these weaker hosts. Put the right plant in the right place and take good care of it. Choose plants that are native to our region and grow them in a suitable location. They usually require very little pest control.

Some pests can better be repelled without using harmful chemicals. The slug is a case in point. The slug baits offered in garden stores are not consistently effective because they don't necessarily attract the slugs, and the slugs learn how to get around them. Use something slugs cannot resist: Heidelberg beer. You can place this in small containers around your garden with edges near ground surface, under a flat stone resting on smaller stones, and the slugs won't even think about your plants. Not only that, your friends will think the stones were placed as an enhancement to your garden. You can always try a pet duckling if you are an animal lover.

There are some mechanical controls as well. For instance, weevils love to feed on the trunks of Rhododendrons when they first emerge out of the ground in spring. Some garden stores now carry one-inch double-sided adhesive tape or copper tape for wrapping around the base of the Rhododendron. The weevils get stuck on the tape, or can't get a good foothold on the copper tape to climb up the trunk to their favorite feeding spots.

Biological controls are another alternative if properly timed. If you are still having trouble with those weevils, there are certain types of nematodes you can buy to sprinkle on the soil beneath your Rhododendrons. They will burrow down into the ground to gobble the weevil larvae before they can even emerge.

The last option that should ever be considered is chemical control of pests. Commonly available chemicals end up killing beneficial insects along with the parasitic ones, as well as their predators, including birds. For example, diazanone used to kill crane flies takes out lots of birds with it. This results in fewer predators on the crane flies and the actual outcome is not fewer, but more crane flies.

Start thinking about what you want. Most of the birds in the Northwest are NOT seed eaters. If you want to invite birds to your garden, you need to have insects for them to eat. Avoid the chemicals in order to retain their food source, give them some cover, and they will take care of your crane flies.

Seattle University now uses horticultural oil on their blue spruces once a year to control gypsy moths. Before they spray, they check to make sure there are no bird nests. The oil degrades in a few days.

If you want further advice on integrated pest control methods such as these, there are several good resources: Washington Toxics Coalition, The Center for Urban Horticulture, and King County Land and Water Resources.

Cheryl Klinker is a Lake City resident and member of the Thornton Creek Alliance.