Are you tired of the constant buzzing and biting of Mosquitoes ruining your outdoor space?
Transforming your yard into a mosquito-free zone is easier than you might think. Those pests don't have to ruin your outdoor fun! With these five approaches, you can reclaim your outdoor space.
Say goodbye to stagnant water, keep your lawn in check, make use of scents mosquitoes hate, invite their enemies over, or let the pros get involved. Your pest free outdoor space awaits!
1. Remove Standing Water
Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water. The eggs hatch into larvae about three days later, and about 12 days after that, adults emerge and fly away. Considering that each female can lay up to 400 eggs and the life cycle is complete in about two weeks, you can see why mosquito populations can increase so quickly.
Reducing the amount of standing water around your home will minimize breeding sites and reduce the number of mosquitoes. Some places to look include children's toys in the yard, clogged rain gutters, tree holes, old tires, discarded cans, and the saucers of your outdoor flower pots.
Here’s a list of a few of the most common sources of standing water around your home that mosquitoes love.
After eliminating the yard's water collectors, ensure your lawn has functional drainage. Eliminate wet spots in your yard that are prone to flooding or where stagnant water collects.
You can eliminate these areas through the use of gravel, stone pavers, or more advanced landscape solutions like adjusting the pitch of your yard or installing a French drain.
Read more on drainage solutions here: 5 Solutions to help Drainage in Your Yard
2. Keep the grass cut and plant growth under control
Like how mosquitoes need water to breed, they like to live in an overrun yard. Tall grass, plants, and shrubs are where mosquitoes go to rest, relax and play.
Getting rid of standing water will prevent them from breeding, but if you're dealing with a mosquito issue, keeping your landscape well-maintained will help reduce the existing population.
3. Use Scents to Repel Mosquitoes
Update your landscape plants to include lavender, citrus, basil, lemongrass, peppermint, and geraniums. Some people swear by these fragrant plants that deter mosquitoes from hanging around.
However, you should be aware that the science on this is not settled. While some gardeners swear by them, these plants have not been found in a lab to provide a repellent effect.
Still, thanks to the pleasant smell they make for humans, they're not a bad thing to have in your Gainesville landscape design anyway.
4. Attract natural predators
Predators can’t completely eradicate your issue if you’re overrun with mosquitoes, but if you’re just getting a few unwanted critters here and there, attracting them is worth a shot.
- Many birds are natural mosquito predators, including purple martins, waterfowl, swallows, and migratory songbirds. Setting up bird feeders is a solid step in attracting these birds.
- Or plant a mix of wildflowers and native grasses to a portion of your landscape to attract insects, a crucial food source for many of these birds.
- Installing a bat house can also help. Bats eat up mosquitoes, but you may not want to attract bats near your home.
- If you have a pond, you can benefit from predators like goldfish, koi, and red-eared slider turtles.
Mosquitoes also fall prey to other insects—some you’d be happy to see in your garden and others, not so much. Spiders eat mosquitoes when they fly into their webs and dragonflies gobble mosquitoes right up.
5. Start a Professional Mosquito Control Program
While you may find some measure of success with DIY methods, if you’re dealing with tons of mosquitoes, you need to call in a professional pest control company.
Professional pest control companies have the expertise to kill mosquitoes at all stages of the life cycle and are more knowledgeable about safety practices when applying chemicals.
Our mosquito control program can help to greatly reduce the mosquitoes living directly around your house. Because of their high humidity requirement, mosquitoes like damp and shady areas to shelter in. Regularly treating these areas with an appropriately labeled pesticide can kill mosquitoes and make it impossible for them to breed.
Areas that don't get a lot of sun should be treated regularly. These are the areas where mosquitoes like to rest during the day when it’s hottest, so treating them will greatly reduce the number of mosquitoes and other bugs in your yard.