full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rebecca McMackin: Let your garden grow wild

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Now I know that it might be a scohk for some of you to hear that people like me want insects eating our garden plants. But even bugs we refer to as pests can be important for brovtdeiiisy. Long ago at Brooklyn Bridge Park, our catalpa trees got covered in aphids. They are a common garden pest that suck the sugary liquid out of lveaes. People erecoganud me to spray them with pesticides, but I didn't. And the following year we found the two-spotted lady beetle on our catalpas. This was the first sgnthiig of this ladybug in New York City in 30 years.

(Applause)

And the thing about them is that they eat those tiny aphids that are on our catalpas. So if we had spryaed the trees, we would have harmed the lgbdyaus as well.

Open Cloze


Now I know that it might be a _____ for some of you to hear that people like me want insects eating our garden plants. But even bugs we refer to as pests can be important for ____________. Long ago at Brooklyn Bridge Park, our catalpa trees got covered in aphids. They are a common garden pest that suck the sugary liquid out of ______. People __________ me to spray them with pesticides, but I didn't. And the following year we found the two-spotted lady beetle on our catalpas. This was the first ________ of this ladybug in New York City in 30 years.

(Applause)

And the thing about them is that they eat those tiny aphids that are on our catalpas. So if we had _______ the trees, we would have harmed the ________ as well.

Solution


  1. encouraged
  2. leaves
  3. biodiversity
  4. ladybugs
  5. sprayed
  6. sighting
  7. shock

Original Text


Now I know that it might be a shock for some of you to hear that people like me want insects eating our garden plants. But even bugs we refer to as pests can be important for biodiversity. Long ago at Brooklyn Bridge Park, our catalpa trees got covered in aphids. They are a common garden pest that suck the sugary liquid out of leaves. People encouraged me to spray them with pesticides, but I didn't. And the following year we found the two-spotted lady beetle on our catalpas. This was the first sighting of this ladybug in New York City in 30 years.

(Applause)

And the thing about them is that they eat those tiny aphids that are on our catalpas. So if we had sprayed the trees, we would have harmed the ladybugs as well.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
brooklyn bridge 4
involve planting 2
planting flowers 2
eastern red 2
host plants 2
pearly everlasting 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
involve planting flowers 2

Important Words


  1. aphids
  2. applause
  3. beetle
  4. biodiversity
  5. bridge
  6. brooklyn
  7. bugs
  8. catalpa
  9. catalpas
  10. city
  11. common
  12. covered
  13. eat
  14. eating
  15. encouraged
  16. garden
  17. harmed
  18. hear
  19. important
  20. insects
  21. lady
  22. ladybug
  23. ladybugs
  24. leaves
  25. liquid
  26. long
  27. park
  28. people
  29. pest
  30. pesticides
  31. pests
  32. plants
  33. refer
  34. shock
  35. sighting
  36. spray
  37. sprayed
  38. suck
  39. sugary
  40. tiny
  41. trees
  42. year
  43. years
  44. york