A treefrog in a flowerpot
Natural insect predator
A tree frog is a gift of the forest. Its gentle trills adorn the night, the calls emanating from tree trunks or green vegetation wherever our natural landscapes bring them in close to our dwellings.
This gray treefrog came indoors with a potted plant when our client brought in the planter with the first freeze during late October. It remained content on the plant indoors until Indian Summer in mid November when it rode the planter outside again, then followed its instinct to find a moist hibernation location.
Every spring, this family will be rewarded again and again with gentle trills of gray treefrogs. The treefrogs will capture insects on walkways, siding, and window sills during nightly forays. Occasionally, the family will smile and wonder as they discover a treefrog clinging to their window, tiny suction cups holding its toes to the window glass as its throat balloons for trills.
Their home’s tight skin and this family’s tolerance for a few harmless bugs of uncluttered foundation plantings and occasional cobwebs under their eves enable them to reject routine perimeter insecticide spraying. Bugs, and the treefrogs hunting them, are unlikely to visit homes treated with powerful chemical sprays. Instead, our client chooses biorational and organic crack and crevice treatments and spot treatments followed by careful closure of insect-size openings, cracks in the foundation and crevices in the siding, to seal the skin of their home against penetration by bugs and weather, too. Their green approach using Integrated Pest Management and their successful effort to restore and integrate their natural landscape into their family habitat through Integrated Habitat Management™ returns dividends daily.
Theirs are the gifts of the forest.