A well planned landscape can save you lots of money. A lousy one can cost you lots of money.

Whether you hire a landscaper to install your lawn and landscape, or do it yourself, there are some things you should give close attention to aside from the standard design principles commonly followed today. These tips will help to “green” your lawn and landscape, and keep some green in your wallet.

Soil type and irrigation

What could be more green than saving one of our most important natural resources; water? If you have a heavy clay soil, and you want to grow almost any of our common lawn grasses, you should be certain that the soil is amended properly, or top soil added.

If this is not done, you will be at constant odds with mother nature and your pocketbook when the heat of summer arrives. The best practice for lawn grass irrigation is to water deeply, and infrequently, but if you have hard clay soils, and nothing else to absorb and hold the water for the plants, you will have to water more often, using less water each time to achieve similar results. If you attempt to water deeply on clay soils, the result will be excess runoff. When watering more frequently to avoid runoff, you will still need to have the same amount of water, but it will have to be broken up into several smaller increments. Either way, the water used is less efficient. You will lose water to runoff, or evaporation, neither of which is desirable, and in some places, it is even considered criminal!

To avoid this problem, you need to start before the landscape and lawn are installed, or renovated.

Make sure that there is sufficient top soil to become an adequate root zone for your lawn grasses and landscape beds. Plan your irrigation layout carefully to avoid having tree watering or bed watering on the same station with lawn watering. Each of these will require differing amounts of water, and you could end up drowning one type of plant while allowing the others to die of thirst! Be certain that your landscape beds are not built in a basin, and that they have good surface drainage, otherwise the plants being used could suffocate from excessive watering. Be sure to clump your plantings according to water needs and water use. Landscaping is more than just making a drawing, and choosing plants, it involves the proper placement of the plants to achieve the best combination of growing conditions.

Plant and bed placement tips

This tip will help you to save money, and “green” up your homes pest control program: When designing landscape beds, leave yourself a foot or more of space between the plants and the home. Do the same with bark mulch. That extra foot of space between your walls and plants can mean the difference between a full blown insect insurgency, and a healthy symbiotic relation between the great outdoors and the insect and mold free comfort of your indoor living space.

Pests use plants and bark mulch as a covered highway onto and into your home. The further you can keep these 2 elements from your exterior walls the better. You would probably be surprised at the difference just a few inches of space can make when it comes to insects. Instead of using the mulch between the plants and the foundation, try digging a trench, and adding coarse sand with pebbles on top. Tunneling insects like termites will find the sand and pebbles impossible to make a tunnel without having it cave in behind them. Other types of insects will see the space as being a cover-less dead end, and  and you will save yourself a lot of money on pest treatments in the long run.

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Part one in our pest prevention series.

The bugs and rodents you find inside your home come from somewhere. Have you ever given any thought as to where that “somewhere” might be? Well, you should! Bugs and rodents don’t just spontaneously appear in your home. They are not magical, they are not mysterious, they are not from another planet. Understanding where bugs mice and rats come from, and what they want is the key to dealing with them.

Where bugs and rodents come from

Bugs and rodents exist in the wide open spaces of the great outdoors, and they do pretty well out there, but they are like human beings in this way, they are always looking to upgrade. They like the great outdoors, but they also like living with you! That is, they like living with you, as long as you provide them with what they want, and need to survive.

Bug and rodent philosophy

Philosophically speaking, a variety of positions exist as to why bugs are here to begin with. Those who hold to an evolutionary viewpoint say that insects and rodents are just a part of the natural chain of evolution. Those of a biblical persuasion believe that insects and rodents are the result of the fallen nature of our world, and those of eastern religions have a variety of takes on them, often seeing them as being just as important as human life.

No matter how you slice it, insects and rodents can be a problem, and to deal with them, you don’t have to violate the tenants of any philosophical position of which I am aware. Simply prevent them!

If insects and rodents come from outdoors, and you as a homeowner choose to keep them there, it is important to determine what you have that makes your home a good target for them.

What bugs and rodents want

What they seek is shelter and food. Of course they do need a way to get inside. What we want to do is determine what it is on your property that allows a large enough population of insects to accumulate, offers them cover and close enough proximity to stage an invasion of your house, and a pathway into your home, and what you have inside that is the reason why they are seeking to get inside. Once we do this, and eliminate the things that allow the population to grow, have cover, have a reason to want to get inside, and a way to do it, then we will drastically decrease the numbers of pest actually inside your home, without having to resort to the over use of pesticides, or violate the tenants of your bug and rodent philosophy.

We will be discussing the details of preventing bugs and rodents, like clearing and cleaning your property, good lawn care tactics for pest control, and how the landscape you have effects your pest control effort in the next few posts. If you have questions or comments, p;ease feel free to use our convenient comment box. We would love to hear from you!

See part two in our pest prevention series: Pest Control Brush Weeds Rubble Clean Up

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“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Better Mouse Trap?

The best way to deal with pests, whether insects or rodents, is pest prevention. I have no doubt about that, prevention is the most logical and humane pest control but sometimes, in spite of our best intentions and best efforts, one or two may get by, and the best laid plans of men fall to the best laid plans of mice.

I am not sure in exactly what context Emerson’s famous words were penned or spoken, but have always assumed that it was somehow related to innovation as it relates to basic human needs being the chief way to success. If I am wrong about that, please forgive me Mr. Emerson. Unfortunately, Mr. Emerson never saw the best innovation for trapping mice, he died in 1882, and the greatest leap in trapping mice, the Hooker trap, came along in 1894.

The best device for trapping mice, so far

I have looked at a lot methods for trapping mice, and many mouse trap innovations, and have yet to see any that actually top Hooker’s good old spring loaded mechanical apparatus that we have have all been accustomed to seeing from childhood. If you have never seen one, just review the old Tom and Jerry cartoons.

These traps have been maligned by users for not being efficient, and by animal rights groups, for being cruel, but, they are the best method available for trapping mice. The efficiency problem is not with our traps, the problem is in the implementation.

Let me put it this way: The main reasons that mouse traps don’t work, is operator error!

These mouse trapping tips should help.

The old cheese on the mousetrap, made famous by innumerable cartoons is really not the best way to use it.

Peanut butter on the trap is now the common standard, but if you are like me, you have come back to traps to find them licked clean.

1. The best method for trapping mice that I have found, is to glue a nut to the trap. This has resulted in a much higher rate of catches than any other method I have used. They can’t lick it off, they can’t steal it and make a run for the hole with the cat in hot pursuit.
2. If this method does not suit you, try this: take some white bread, squeeze it together in a small ball, and then press it around the bait holder in such a way that it cannot be easily removed.
3. In either method, set more than one trap per location. If one makes a catch, leave the other until you are sure that no others are scouting the same area.

Dealing with the mouse afterward.

This can be the most difficult part of trapping mice. Let me offer a couple of suggestions for the squeamish:

1. When you hear the clap of the trap, don’t rush in quickly. In most cases, the unfortunate little critter may have a little kicking and squirming to do. Wait until this is over.
2. If you use plastic grocery bags, get a couple of them, double them, put a hand inside, release the trap, and pick the mouse up with the bag. Pull the bag around the rodent, and tie it off. Drop the whole mess into another bag, and tie it off as well. Dispose of it in a suitable manner.

I do not recommend the use of glue traps. They can lead to some pretty nasty results. Some people like to use glue traps because they feel that they are more humane than the spring loaded slap traps, but leaving a creature to die of starvation, or remove its own limbs to get free is hardly humane. The best method for trapping mice is still the spring loaded trap.

After trapping the mice

When you are certain that you have caught all the mice present, go back to the area and look for signs of how the mice entered. It may take a while, because mice can get through a hole the size of a pencil. At any rate, you should find the entrance, and plug it to avoid future problems.

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Part six in our pest prevention series

Homes have holes. Lots and lots of them. To keep pests out, you need to seal these holes. Homes have vents, and while these should not be sealed, they should be made inaccessible to insects and rodents.

Sealing your home against pests

It is a necessary fact of life. You have to breathe. Stop doing it for more than a couple of minutes, and you are a goner! Your home has to breathe too, and In order to breathe, in order to allow entry for pipes and cables, in order to vent heat and harmful gases, there have to be openings in a home. This is a list of the primary openings in a home, that is the important ones that are there for a reason. There may be others, like places that have separated over years of settling, cracks, and openings that were made for repairs, or made inadvertently over the years. Check your home closely for these.

Vents

• Attic Vents: For dissipating heat.
• Soffit Vents: For dissipating heat.
• Plumbing Vents: For dissipating fumes and allowing the air needed for proper function of drainage systems.
• Range vents: For dissipating the heat and smoke from cooking.
• Hot gas vents for ventilating the hot gases from gas hot water heaters.
• Dryer vents for dissipating the hot air from clothes dryers.
• Fan vents, for removing nuisance odors from bathrooms.
• Weep holes are small vents for allowing the drainage and drying of condensate from natural heating and cooling in the walls of your home, to prevent mold.

Other possible pest openings

Power, communication, and transmission lines and pipes

• Air Conditioning Condensate drains: Very often, these are small copper pipes through the walls of the home. These allow the removal of moisture from air conditioning units.
• Plumbing pipe openings: Allowing plumbing into your home; In most cases today, this is done through the floor of the concrete slab, but sometimes in other areas for homes on blocks or pier and beam construction.
• Electrical lines. To allow electricity transmission: These are most often at the upper portion of an outside wall.
• Cable communications lines: For satellite or cable line entry: The location can vary.

A home with out some forms of ventilation would soon destroy itself. A home without electricity, plumbing and communication would not be much fun!

So, how do we accommodate all these holes in our homes, and still keep little critters out? Well, that is what this is about.

How to close the border to pests

Vents

Before central heat and air, there were devices in homes to allow for the adjustment of temperature through the use of ventilation. We still have them in most homes today where they often serve as nothing more than vestiges of the ancient past. These were known as windows. Often the doors were used for the same purpose in the summer.

How did they manage to open these ventilation devices without allowing bugs in? This was accomplished through window and door screens. Taking a lesson from the past, we might consider the use of screens over the vents. Most home builders now screen vents, but there is always a chance, and you should check yours. Sometimes some are omitted by accident. I have seen a number of cases where rodents gained entry through dryer vents, and then chewed through the vent hose to get to the cheese and crackers. Write yourself a note to periodically check these vent screens for clogging.

Protecting other potential openings for pests

Other entry routes into the home, pipes and cables, will need to be sealed using another ancient technology: Caulk. A tube of high quality caulk is one of the best tools in home pest prevention. Seal around those entries on the outside of your home. Even the very small cracks and holes. You might be surprised just how small an insect or a rodent can become when it is hungry, thirsty, hot dry, wet or cold. When you are done with the outside of your home, you are not done!

Sealing indoors for pest prevention

On the inside of your house, you should do the same thing. Give special attention to plumbing drains. Very often a box was used to to form around the bathroom piping for the plumbers to make all the connections. If this area is not filled before the walls are completed, there will be exposed soil on the inside of the wall. Most pre-treatments for termites will lower the chances of anything coming into the home through these openings, but occasionally some do. If you have easy access to these areas through a pipe chase, filling the area with mortar or some other hardening substance is a good option, if not, the first time that a repair is made to your plumbing requiring a plumber to open up the wall, you might be able to do it. Otherwise, make sure that the inside wall is sealed well.

Caulking and sealing indoors

• Caulking around doors and windows, inside and out should be checked, and resealed if needed.
• Door sweeps should be checked and replaced if they do not reach the floor, or do not go all the way to the edges of the door.
• All weather-stripping around doors and windows should be checked.
• All screen doors should be in good order with no holes. The same is true of window screens. Look for a good fit. Check the window surface to surface seals where they open, make sure the seal is tight enough that the bugs can’t crawl between.

Caulked pest entry point

If you have followed the other guidelines in this pest prevention series, the numbers of pests trying to get into your home will be few. If you will now seal your home as described here, you will have prevented the overwhelming majority of the remaining pests from entering, and are well on your way to a pest free home. The next section is an overview with some added common sense tips for home pest prevention.

See part seven in our pest prevention series!

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The cost of residential pest control

Residential pest control is big business. The annual cost for termite control alone in my part of the country is about $400.00 per year, and the cost of other pest management, such as that for ants and roaches is not included in that figure. If you tack on other pest control costs, like those for outdoor pests and rodents, the cost can skyrocket.

Don’t blame the exterminator

Nationwide, the cost is into the billions, but don’t blame your exterminator. The cost of maintaining a license for a residential Pest Control Operator has grown, and that cost includes not only labor, chemicals, and equipment, but also the ever increasing cost of insurance for those who work in the field of pest control.

The safety of residential pest control

There is another factor to consider when looking at your home pest control needs. That is safety! Most residential pest control operators and exterminators are safe and meticulous about their work, but continuous exposure to insecticides is still a physical hazard. Limiting such exposure can be an important factor in the continued health and well being of your family. Even your exterminator would prefer to limit his exposure, and is required to wear and use personal protective equipment during the mixing and application process. Less exposure means less chance of pesticide related illness.

Alternative residential pest control options

Home pest control products have made significant advancements in the area of safety, and there are products available for residential pest control which do not contain the nerve damaging chemicals used in standard pest control products used by exterminators. Many of these “green” pest control products are good, but they often lack the residual effect of the standard insecticides. There are, however, other means of pest management which offer excellent results, and can help to limit the need for any type of pest control product and service.

Residential pest control and pest prevention

One of the best ways to limit the need for using pesticides and their attendant cost and safety issues is to practice pest prevention.We have a few tips on using pest prevention as pest management listed below. and links to pest prevention resources on this site and others for a more thorough study of the subject.

1. Don’t plant climbing vines around your vents or windows providing a way for a pests to get into your home. Climbing vines can gradually invade your window openings, spreading them open, and allowing insects to travel through.
2. Don’t allow shrubs and tree branches to touch your homes exterior. Like vines, bugs can use them to get onto, and into your home.
3. Seal around all doors, windows, air conditioning, and plumbing coming into the house. Do this on the inside as well as the outside. Pay close attention to cable inlets, and all inside plumbing inlets.
4. Be sure that your door sweeps are all the way to the edges of the door opening, and that they reach all the way to the floor.
5. Check all weather stripping to make sure bugs can’t crawl through any gaps. Replace if needed.
6. Keep brush and weeds as far away from the house as possible, so that the pests don’t have a staging area near your home.
7. Rotting wood is the roach’s natural food, make sure that your immediate outside area is free of it, and anything else that might hide pests.
8. Move your landscaping mulch away from the edge of your home by a foot or more. Like rotting wood, it can hide insects, and like vines and shrubs it provides an easy cover for travel onto and into your home.
9. Check houseplants before you bring them inside when first purchased or brought in from your greenhouse, or after watering outdoors.
10. Check all shopping bags, fruits and vegetables carefully for insects.
11. It goes without saying, that your home should be clean, with no food sources for pests.
12. Keep your trash can lids on, and the can away from the house as far as possible to keep flies away.
13. If you have indoor pets, check them when they return from trips outdoors, for hitch hikers.
14. Check for wet spots and puddles in your lawn which might become breeding areas for mosquitoes and other undesirables.

Residential pest control resources:

Home and garden pest control

Science: Pests and Diseases: Integrated Pest Management

Pest Prevention Principles and Practices

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To control pests, like everything else, the best form of control is prevention. Preventive pest control provides a solid base for your entire pest control system, and, if carried out properly, will provide almost all the pest control you will need.

What to check 0utside your home

Frequency: Monthly

1. Check the outside areas of your property for weeds and brush.

2. Check for trash, rubble, and debris. These provide cover and food for insects and rodents. Remove anything found.

3. Check all containers like bird baths, pet food or pet watering bowls for stagnant water, and left over food. If you are feeding more than your pet needs, you are inviting predators to dine on your lawn. If you leave standing water, you are inviting mosquitoes to breed.

4. Check for puddles, and standing water. If you find any, be certain to make and execute plans to provide permanent drainage.

5. Check the effectiveness of your mowing program. Look for the presence of thatch. If the grass is getting a little too high between mowings, you may need to add an extra mowing day. High grass and thatch allow insects and rodents to move undetected in your lawn, and allows weeds time to mature and replant themselves. See also: Lawn Mowing Tips Mower Size Lawn Mowing Tips Mowing Frequency Lawn And Garden: Less Lawn More Garden

6. Check for tree limbs, shrubs, vines, and landscape plants touching your home. Trim them back if they are. They provide a roadway for insects to get onto, and into your house.

7. Check for holes, cracks, and poorly sealed plumbing, electrical, and communication line openings, and seal any you find with caulk or other appropriate materials.

8. Check doors and windows to be sure that screens fit tightly, that the caulking joints are in good order, and that weatherstripping and sweeps are are not letting light, and pests through.

9. After these steps have been taken, any outdoor pests remaining can be treated with the appropriate insecticides and herbicides. There should be few if any, if the above steps were taken correctly.

What to check inside your home

1. Check all entries corresponding to those outside, such as cable, plumbing, and electrical entry, and door and window frames. Make any repairs needed.

2. Make sure that the inside of your home is clean, free of clutter, and free of food crumbs.

3. Look for signs of insects and rodent entry and activity such as feces, and gnawing marks. Use traps for rodents before using rodenticides if at all possible. Use insecticides sparingly if needed, and then only according to label directions.

See also: Home Pest Control Theories and Practices and Home Mosquito Control And Prevention

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Some things are inherently interesting. The relationship between insects and vegetation is such a subject. Interactions can be very simple, but they can also be very complex. In this case, it is simple.

Sometimes, the removal of one form of plant life from the habitat will change the balance. A minor alteration in habitat can make a major difference in the type of insect life in an area. In the case of mosquitoes and vegetation, getting rid of cover on a pond, will usually get rid of most mosquito problems.

Mosquito habits and habitats

The best way for controlling insects is by getting a better understanding of their habits, and the habitats they prefer, and then depriving them of what they need to survive by changing the habitat. Let’s start by getting a little better understanding of the mosquito, and how the mosquito and vegetation in a pond or lake interact.

Mosquitoes and what they need

The mosquito has several needs. The female needs blood before producing eggs. So, they will seek areas with available animal life. They need a wet place to lay their eggs where they and their eggs and larvae will be protected.
This usually happens in an area where there is sufficient vegetation of some type to provide this cover. In most cases this comes in the form of filamentous algae.

Filamentous algae

Filamentous algae is only one part of the problem, but it is usually the largest part. The algae normally grows in the shallow, still water closest to the shoreline, and that is also where other cover grows. This is the perfect breeding and hatching ground for the mosquito. It has shallow still water, it is close to the places where small animals come to drink, which provides a supply of fresh blood, and the algae and other vegetation provide perfect cover. Learn more about: algae and algae control

Bringing balance to a pond

Controlling the algae, and bringing the lake or pond back into balance, will allow natural predators to take care of the problem. There is really no way, or reason to attempt to get rid of the mosquitoes until the cover is gone. When the cover is gone, the fish, frogs, birds, and other insect eaters will be able to find the larvae, and the mosquitoes, and eat them. The problem will go away on it’s own simply by leveling the playing field.

Managing vegetation and preventing insects

The best insect control is prevention. Prevention usually involves some alteration in the environment, this usually involves the control of vegetation. In fact, in almost all cases of aquatic or terrestrial insect problems, there is a vegetation management issue involved. When that is solved, whether it is high weeds and brush in an adjoining vacant lot, or overgrowth and algae in a pond or lake, the problem will go away! In most cases when a chemical is used to get rid of an insect pest, the first choice should be an herbicide!

Don’t use insecticides on or near the water.

Insecticides should not be used in areas where the residue might end up in the water! At the very least, insecticides will kill the bugs that the fish use for food. Most insecticides are nerve toxins that have more impact on lower life forms than higher life forms because of their less complicated nerve systems. Because of this, it takes less insecticide to kill a bug than a human being with a much more complex nervous system. Since the fish have a very simple nervous system, it takes very little insecticide to kill them. Herbicides work in a completely different manner, and the proper ones, used properly, will not harm the fish.

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Pest professionals don’t get the respect they deserve. They are at the forefront of fighting the spread of disease by helping to lower the populations of the creatures which most often carry and spread disease. It is about time they get the respect and recognition they deserve.

The job of pest exterminators

A Pest can be anything that bothers you, particularly rodents, bugs, or weeds. Pest exterminators deal with a variety of pest problems, it is not glamorous work, but it is work that must be done for the prevention and containment of disease, and other related public health reasons. Pest exterminators perform tasks that most people do not really want to think about, which like other necessary but distasteful occupations, involve the removal of something that can be dangerous to us. You may not want to think about how the roaches, rats, or sewage is disposed of, but it is something that must happen for our species to survive.

Complaints about extermination

One of the chief complaints about pest exterminators is the cost of the extermination service. Please remember that exterminators are required to test for licensing, retrain each year, maintain insurance policies, purchase and maintain equipment, purchase chemicals, purchase and maintain transportation, buy fuel, and pay taxes. In short, being an exterminator is expensive. The profit involved is much less than you might imagine, and the work is rarely pleasant.

Environment and health concerns

Another problem that pest exterminators face, is that the work of removing pests often involves chemicals which some can be dangerous. This puts them at odds with groups who oppose the use of chemicals on safety and environmental grounds, which can add stress to the job.

Chemical hazards

Pest exterminators also deal with the danger of chronic exposure to insecticides and the potential hazards of acute pesticide exposure which can cause health problems.

All in all, the pest exterminator is not being overpaid for his work.

The most common pest exterminators

Rodent exterminators

• Rat exterminators
• Mouse exterminators

Bug exterminators

• Roach exterminators
• Ant exterminators
• Spider exterminators
• Termite exterminators
• Bed bug exterminators

Outdoor pests

• Wasp exterminators
• Bee exterminators
• A variety of lawn and garden pests

Before you decide that it is time to call a bee exterminator, call a bee keeper instead. Bee keepers will often gather the bees, and use them for pollination and honey production, so destroying them would be a shame.

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Part two in our pest prevention series.

To control pests through prevention the very best way to start is by clearing your property of the things that encourage pests. Simple, right? Weedy brushy areas are both cover and breeding grounds for pests.

Weeds

Weeds provide food for bugs and rodents. Mice like seed. Weeds have seed. Mice like weeds! Simple as that. The complexities of what each bug and rodent likes to eat, and how the interaction between all of them produces this buggy, weedy community would be out of place here, so let’s just say that weeds attract insects and rodents seeking food. Weeds also attract insects and rodents who seek cover from predators. So, between the food, and the shelter, weeds make a pretty happy hunting ground and breeding ground for small annoying creatures.

Naturally, the question comes up: “If they like weeds so much why don’t they just stay there and out of my kitchen?” The answer is simple: They think you may have a better life for them.

Brush

Brush mixed with weeds is a sign that property is not maintained well. It usually means that it was cleared once, and has not been maintained or used since it was cleared. This makes for a more advanced pest community, and, yes, if you live nearby, they will advance to your doorstep! Clearing your property of such problem areas will advance your pest control program beyond what exterminators can offer.

Brush and weeds are not normal growth

A patch of brush and weeds is not a native habitat, it is the early stage of something that might become a forest in 30 years, but what it grows is rarely natural or native. Such situations are created by humans by accident, and rarely produce native plants in abundance. The only wildlife that is attracted to such an area is the type of wildlife attracted to other forms of human waste and garbage. Saving such areas in the name of saving the environment is not realistic. From my experience, what grows in cleared areas that are not maintained is almost always non native, biodiversity attacking, invasive and a threat to the surrounding natural environment.

Rubble

Rubble and rubbish are a big problem. These stacks and piles offer ideal homes for rodents, and the resulting snakes that feed on them. They also provide food and shelter for insects that would like to spend some time in your kitchen.

Roaches and decaying wood

The natural food of the roach is wet decaying wood. If you have piles or stacks of it around your place, you will eventually have roaches who will attempt to come inside your home for something a little more tasty. When they get inside, the roach population will grow commensurate with the availability of food. It doesn’t require a truly dirty home, a drop of grease will feed thousands of the little disease spreaders. Getting rid of rubble will eliminate most of the threat.

General cleanup

Things like tires, and buckets, disused pet food and watering bowls, and the old moon hubcap that you planned to build a truck around someday provide luxury accommodations for mosquitoes to reproduce. If you remove these things from your property, or store them properly, it will go a long way to solving problems with mosquitoes.

What to do

My advice is to clean it up. If you keep fire wood, stack it on a wood rack, preferably a foot or more off the ground. This will both preserve the wood, and prevent a lot of little things from becoming a big problem. If you have brushy weedy areas on your property, take an ax to the brush, and mow the weeds. Then keep it mowed.

Habitats

If your goal is to have a backyard habitat, work on the brush and weeds selectively. Get rid of the weeds by mowing them, unless there is a patch of truly native plant life that you want to save. Get rid of non native, invasive plants that will eventually take over if left to their own devices. Nurture and encourage the remaining native plant life, and you will be surprised at the results.

See part three in our pest prevention series: How Lawn Care Effects Pest Control

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Landscapes matter

Part four in our pest prevention series

What you do with your landscape has a direct effect on the pest population attempting to enter your home. How you build it, and how you maintain it is a huge factor in indoor pest prevention. Your landscape is an insect and rodent magnet, it will attract them, or it will help to repel them, based on how you manage it, and the plants you have in the landscape.

These are some tips for the homeowner on using landscaping to prevent pest problems.

Vines

Avoid climbing vines attached to the home, especially around windows and other openings. Vines are like a highway for pests. They will work into tiny openings, spreading them wider, and allowing insects and arachnids to piggy back inside.

Shrubs

Shrubs planted too close to the home, or touching the home, allow pests to hide and also provide a roadway to any nearby opening. They should be kept at least one foot from the home, preferably three feet.

Mulch

The mulch in landscape beds can hide a lot of pests. It also provides food sources for pests as it gets older. It can also be a source of fungus. It should be kept at least a foot from the home, preferably three feet.

Trees

Trees should not contact the home in any way. Tree branches in contact with the home provide a roadway for pests onto your home, and eventually into your home. They also may damage gutters and roofs. Poor pruning, or deliberate topping increases pest populations. Bad pruning practices cause the tree to produce unnatural growth that is poorly connected and susceptible to disease and fungus. It opens the tree to pests and disease that feed on the trees juices and provides hiding places for them.

Landscape Plant Choices And Pest Prevention

Your choice of plants to populate your landscape plays a very important role in preventing home pests. As a general rule of thumb, these should be native plants whenever possible.

Native plants for pest control

In fact, the single most important thing you can do to “pest proof” your landscape, is to build it with plants that are native to your area. Native plants will decrease your pest problems, lower your water and nutrient needs, and do a big favor for the environment!

Native plants, are naturally resistant to the types of pests you have in your region, and are already acclimated to your soil types, your weather conditions, and your seasons. Native plants are accustomed to the average annual rainfall in your area, and they won’t break out of your landscape and swallow the forests of your area.

Every year we see thousands of acres taken over by “non native,” alien pests. They destroy the native plant life and in doing so, destroy the biodiversity of the area. The cost is into the millions for controlling them, and we are just seeing the tip of the botanical iceberg.

Integrated pest management, should start with prevention, and the place to begin is with the right plants for your area. At the very least, you should avoid the use of anything that is known to be “invasive.”

Go native, and make your landscape and your world a better place.

Your areas native plants are:

• Acclimated to your temperatures.
• Accustomed to your areas rainfall.
• Accustomed to your seasonal changes
• Resistant to your pests
• They won’t eat the local forests or lakes.

So learn about the plants native to your area, and use them in your landscape!

See part 5 in our pest prevention series: Landscape Tree Care And Pest Prevention

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