A very interesting idea to help deal with greenhouse pest control, as mentioned most notably in books by Stefan Buczacki, is to keep lizards in the greenhouse.
The green anole is a very active climber and will escape through vents but the brown anole or anolis sagrei naturally lives closer to the ground and looks a real candidate for the post of pest control officer.
Brown anole. Image licensed from fotolia.
Unfortunately it looks like this probably only works for a specialist gardener who maintains a warm greenhouse. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t viable and while it is interesting, I thought about the following points:
1. Maintaining the temperature at quite a high level of about 70 degrees fahrenheit or higher. You could consider keeping them in a spare habitat during the winter but that’s when many pests become active on the plants you are over-wintering or propagating in the greenhouse.
2. Stopping the anoles escaping through an open door means being vigilant. Would also need to put mesh around the louvres. Also the greenhouse heater would need a very fine mesh surround or fried anole might be on the menu, plus potentially a new heater. I also suspect that if the dog sees lizards in the greenhouse he might get unduly interested and from the outside that could get, errr, dramatic?
Brown anole. Image licensed from fotolia
3. Would they eat other things than pests in the greenhouse? Unlikely as they are insect feeders.
4. Anoles of the same sex do get aggressive with each other, although there would be plenty of space. Care and more greenhouse cleaning would also be required.
5. Best advice is to initially house a male and two or three females, but in the right conditions they breed quickly. Each adult currently costs around £10 to £15 each to buy, plus a fair amount of looking after while they settle.
So for the moment, the jury is out on this one for us, but it might be worth a serious experiment in future.