purpleinopp said: If anybody wants to sweat and get mosquito bites for their effort, they're welcome to "control" the aphids on my milkweed. Trying to control nature seems like an arrogant concept to me, as if humans can do that at all. If I could control nature, all of my plants would be perfect and there would be no pests in the first place. But nature is not perfect, and includes aphids and ants and mosquitoes.
I don't think anyone suggested controlling all of nature. But humans build houses, roads, floodwalls, use pesticides, build sewers, etc. etc ad nauseum all in an effort to control aspects of the natural world. They're all results from the manifestation of a host of challenges we have to deal with.
I'll use my specific case as an example. I grow milkweeds for a few reasons:
1) To aid monarch populations
2) they're natives
3) they're pretty and common even smells nice
4) pollinators LOVE them
5) I collect a LOT of seeds. I give away about half and then send the rest to various conversation efforts
Of all the reasons that I grow them, #1 is by far the most important.
So if I want to help monarchs, I need to maximize the efforts on my small property. I do so with strategic plantings, and beating back threats to milkweed production, larval success, and seed production. They didn't get into population decline by accident. Most of it is thanks to the most invasive and destructive species on the planet... Us. I'm doing everything in my power to create successful outcomes for the plants as well as the monarchs. The very real threats to the plants include milkweed bugs, milkweed beetles, oleander aphids (Mediterranean in origin and thought now to be cosmopolitan largely due to gardening), paper wasps, etc. A byproduct of the aphis is black sooty mold. Sooty mold reduces plant vigor and may even kill it. It also makes milkweed nearly useless to larvae. So... Aphids reduction or elimination means less issues for the milkweed and ultimately the monarch caterpillars.
I kill milkweed bugs for two reasons, they kill milkweed plants and most especially, they kill seed production. I don't use checks anywhere on the property. They get killed manually or with a quick spritz of alcohol followed by a water wash off. I may be able to does the populations hyperlocally, but both the native and nonnative threats to milkweed have much more robust populations than the monarchs.
Last year we had a banner year for Asian paper wasps. That continues to this very day. I've been netting and killing them to lessen monarch caterpillar predation. Again, this is to achieve the goal of maximizing for monarchs and milkweed... Not an attempt to control nature but to reset the equilibrium that had been disrupted. I hope that makes more sense of my position.
I could pay for postage if needed.
Just sent you my address with a list of a few seeds that I have to share if you're interested. 
