As you’re getting into the swing of landscaping with summer around the corner, pests may be causing you some serious grief. And in all reality, pests tend to be the number one cause of landscape problems as well as general discomfort in your yard. So it’s essential that you think about the different strategies you can use to prevent them from making your yard their home.
Keep Your Grass Short
Keeping your grass short might be something you want to do anyway to best enjoy your lawn. But keeping your grass short has other benefits besides just making your backyard look well maintained. Long grass tends to attract a host of different pests because it serves as a great environment for them to grow and thrive.
Keeping your grass short will eliminate these pests in your yard which will also help ensure that you have fewer pests close to your home that could start to try and invade you there.
Trim Trees
As you think about your routine yard maintenance, you should add trimming trees to your list of tasks in addition to mowing your lawn regularly. Trimming your trees not only keeps them healthy and strong by helping you ensure that the strength of the tree goes toward the solid branches, but it also helps you prevent pests and insects from lodging themselves in your different trees.
It’s particularly important to trim any dead, dying, or infected branches quickly because these branches tend to attract different pests who may try to enter the interior of the tree from that entry point.
Use Weed Control
Using weed control throughout your yard is important to generally prevent pests from overtaking your landscaping and your yard in general. Make sure that you think carefully about the type of weed control you go with. Certain types address certain problems; getting the wrong type could accidentally result in killing your beautiful plants. It’s also important that you adapt your weed control approach to different parts of your yard.
When it comes to your garden, it’s particularly important to adopt the right approach to weed control because successful plant growth is paramount. A great way to prevent weeds from overtaking your garden is to use mulch. Mulch helps keep the soil moisture and temperature at good levels. It also helps provide an oasis to many different forms of useful insects like earthworms that enrich your soil even more.
Clean Up Debris Piles
Debris piles are a bad thing for your yard regardless of what angle you look at it. Having piles of debris not only looks bad and can smell bad, but they tend to attract pests. Bugs can lodge themselves within the different crevices and will typically find the nutrients they need to survive and thrive in the moist environment. Simply eliminating these from your yard will eliminate a host of pest problems that could multiply if not taken care of promptly.
Eliminate Standing Water
One of the biggest things that attract pests is standing water. Why? Because water provides pests with virtually everything they need—a place to lay their eggs, nourishment to keep them alive, and a habitat to live in.
If you have areas in your yard or even on your lawn that tend to accumulate water, figure out a way to drain those areas. This might involve being particularly vigilant at draining the area after you water the lawn or after it rains. It might also involve more intensive landscape remodels to eliminate the problem areas in the first place. This might seem like a pain, but ultimately, it will be beneficial.
Pay Attention to Shaded Areas
In addition to paying particular attention to areas where you have standing water, you should also pay attention to shaded areas of your yard. Shade can add so many benefits when it comes to the enjoyability of your outdoor space, but it can also quickly become a spawning place for pests like mosquitoes.
The reason for this is because cooler spaces tend to allow moisture to build up and that moisture tends to take longer to dry up. Just as pests love standing bodies of water, they also love moist cool places. So, either figure out a way to eliminate some of the moisture in those areas or spray those areas more fully with pest control spray.
Store Pet Food Indoors
Another important thing to think about when it comes to preventing pests from messing up your landscape is how you store any pet food. Storing pet food outdoors tends to attract pests like rats and raccoons. And when they come to gnaw at your bag of pet food, they often will destroy some of your landscape in their wake.
Making the simple decision to store your pet food inside your home or at least in your garage can help prevent this type of destruction from occurring. Be sure to put the pet food in a container intended to prevent the food from going rancid and that helps limit the smell from attracting any pests.
Choose Pest Repellant Plants
In addition to placing your pet food in a dry location indoors, you should also think about the plants that you have in your yard. Certain varieties of plants may attract mosquitoes and other pests if their leaves or flowers tend to hold water well. These little pools of water can become a place of growth for these pests.
So, eliminate these types of plants if possible. Additionally, think about adding plant varieties that repel pests. For example, plants like basil and mint tend to drive mosquitoes away.
Figuring out how to transform your yard into an outdoor oasis can seem like a Herculean task from the outset. And trying to make sure that your yard is pest-free doesn’t make it any easier. But make sure that you incorporate at least some of these suggestions otherwise your hard work at creating a beautiful space might be ruined by pests who eat at your plants or destroy your landscaping.
If you do have a pest problem in your home, we can take care of it for you! Get a quote from us here.