The Outdoor Pest Control Guide: How to Keep Your Yard and Garden Free from Infestations

Pests are an eventuality for anybody who has a sizable yard or garden on their property. In the best-case scenario, you will be able to mitigate harmful pests while promoting the presence of beneficial critters in your garden.

Many of the harmful sorts of bugs that may find their way onto your property can be dealt with using non-toxic methods, but a professional is often required to come in and clear out an infestation that has gotten out of control. One of the best ways to minimize the need for a professional is to start early, using a variety of tips for protecting your lawn and garden from outdoor pests.

Tips and Tricks for Protecting Your Garden.

There are many different methods for protecting your yard from detrimental pest infestations, some of which you can do on your own, while others that require a professional exterminator. Before things get that bad though, we want to discuss some of the options available to you as the homeowner. These are few simple tips and tricks up that will help you deal with common garden pests:

  • Attract Beneficial Insects and Natural Predators – One of the most practical ways to keep harmful infestations from developing in your garden, or even your home, is to cultivate a healthy ecosystem of critters to combat them. There are many different kinds of animals that feed on the harmful bugs. A little research about the area you live in and what pests are be beneficial for your garden is a good first step before deciding to break out the pesticides.
  • Remove Sources of Stagnant Water – We all enjoy of the look of a little birdbath or pond in our garden area. A water feature can be a fantastic way to cool office space in the hot summer months, but it is important to not allow that water to sit still for too long. Stagnant water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, who can lay up to 100 eggs in as few as five days if you’re not keeping a consistent watch over your yard. This doesn’t mean you need to remove your pools or water features, but you do need to refresh the water on your property regularly to avoid potential infestations.
  • Trim Your Lawns Regularly – Keeping your yard clear of any overgrowth is a great way to limit hiding places for potential pests. Ticks, mosquitos, and other small insects can utilize tall grass or overgrown vegetation to hide, and then latch themselves onto a person or animal walks by. This can keep your garden from getting infested, and also help limit foot traffic from bringing pests into the home.
  • Watch Out for Anthills – When tending to your garden or mowing your lawn, it’s good to keep an eye out for small anthills. This is a sign that there is a colony forming beneath your property. While potentially not an issue, if the anthill is disrupted the ants can become a serious problem for your yard. Additionally, ants are a terrible indoor infestation as well. They will make their way into any part of your property that has food. While some of these other issues have DIY solutions, if you find an ant infestation is beginning to form on your property it’s best to call a professional.
  • Inspect Your Home Often – While most of our advice has been about how to keep harmful outdoor pests from ruining your garden and eventually making their way to indoors, it’s also important to watch out for pests that can start indoors and make their way out into your garden. Carpenter bees can cause severe damage to structures made from untreated wood. They will build nests by boring into that wood and creating hives. It’s important to check any wood structures, and give your home regular inspections for these potential infestations. Carpenter bees are also often mistaken for bumblebees, who are the beneficial pests for your garden, which is why it’s so important to keep an eye out.
  • Relocate Compost Piles – If you have any debris or other materials around your property, it’s important to remove those piles as soon as you can. Rodents and many other pests can turn those compost piles into their new home if you allow them the time to do so.
  • Harvest – One of the potential delights of a garden is being able to grow your own food. Whether it’s herbs, simple fruits and vegetables, or something else entirely, having that bountiful harvest can be a treat when it’s time to go picking. It’s important though to make sure that the food is picked promptly and not allowed to rot or be scavenged by rabbits or other pests.

Following all these steps will allow you to prevent potential infestations most of the time. A lot of pest problems can be fixed through DIY, but we do want to make it clear that some require extra help. If you ever feel an infestation is getting out of hand, call your local exterminators. They are going to know the correct techniques and pesticides to remove unwanted pests while not disrupting the natural ecosystem that you are trying to cultivate.

How to Identify Critters that are Beneficial for my Property.

It is understandable to want to up kill insects when we first encounter on our property. A pest infestation can not only be incredibly damaging to your home and disruptive to your lifestyle, but can also be incredibly expensive if it is allowed to develop.

It’s important to remember that not all bugs are equally pests. While many critters can be quite harmful to our properties, there are several species that, when allowed to flourish in an outdoor garden environment, can be very beneficial to the ecosystem around your home.

Many bugs, for example, naturally till the soil. This allows air to get in and create more fertile earth for you to garden with. They can also break down decaying materials, which are then also worked back into your soil. More specifically, some insects can also consume other pests, or create natural defenses against possible infestations from problematic bugs. When you are developing your garden or yard, it’s important to keep these steps in mind when you first encounter a potential pest:

  • Observe the Insect – You can learn a lot about a pest by watching what it is doing. You’ll specifically want to watch how it feeds. If a pest is causing damage because of the way it is eating, then this is most likely a detrimental pest to your garden. It’s also important to know the number of insects. If there are a handful, then you most likely just have a small population within your yard. But if there is a large number of the same kind of pest, then it is more likely that you have a growing infestation.
  • Take a Photo for Reference – If you’re able to it can also be helpful to take a photo of the pests you’re worried about. Showing them to a local exterminator or an online forum is a good way to both learn about what is in your garden, as well as get head of a possible infestation.
  • Understand the Good Types of Bugs – When we are discussing beneficial insects for your garden, most of them are going to be predators or parasitoids. The benefit of predators is that they will eat most pests. Parasitoids are much smaller insects then predators, and even smaller than the pests you are trying to remove. This type of bug will lay eggs in or near those harmful pests. These eggs will then eventually hatch and the parasitoid larvae will feed on the pests you are worried about. Together, predators and parasitoids are fantastic additions to any garden, and can offer a lot of security for the long-term protection for your property.

It can be very easy to assume it any unexpected bug on our property is a pest that needs to be removed before it does considerable damage. Thankfully, the next up when we discover an infestation is to call the local exterminator.

An exterminator will know which pests are good for you’re the property, and which pests will ruin your garden before moving onto your house. Learning a bit about the ecosystem around you is a great way to get a leg up on potential infestations, and develop and environments on your property that is inhospitable to potential pests.

Common Bugs that are Bad for My Home

When it comes to protecting our property, it is important to be able to recognize the signs of an infestation as well as which pests are most likely to become an issue. As we stated before, there are many different bugs and critters that are beneficial to a garden or outdoor area. But there are also many animals that can destroy your landscaping, take over your garden, and eventually make their way into your home to cause costly damage.

Some of those pests can be handled with home remedies or a little extra pruning, but many of these issues will require a professional exterminator to deal with them. Be sure to keep an eye out for these pests the next time you take a walk around your property:

  • Caterpillars – Although they are a common insect that most are familiar with, caterpillars can be incredibly destructive if they are allowed to have their way with your garden. Caterpillars eat through plant leaves and leave holes that will hurt your vegetation’s ability to photosynthesize and heal.
  • Rabbits – While many of the other pests we are discussing will cause damage to your garden if they are allowed to swarm in numbers, rabbits can rip your vegetation out from the bottom, completely removing it from your garden. Watch for potential rabbit infestations around dusk, or early in the morning. It will be very rare to catch a rabbit on your property in the middle of the day.
  • Tunneling Rodents – The other infestations we’ve discussed are typically easy to catch in time if you are paying attention, but gophers and moles can get beneath your property and chew away at the roots of your plants.
  • Japanese Beetles – Where the rabbits and caterpillars will eat away at bits and pieces of your garden, beetles will feast on the entirety of your yard in a matter of days. They won’t just eat the leaves or bits of the stem either, beetles will consume your plants down to the roots.
  • Snails and Slugs – Different kinds of slugs or snails can also consume the entirety of your garden if they are allowed to run rampant. Don’t let how slow they move fool you either, these pests are a problem with an appetite.
  • Tobacco Hornworm – A hornworm infestation can destroy all of your fruit and vegetables before they are given a chance to ripen. This type of pest will eat the entirety of your garden’s foliage practically overnight before moving onto any unripe produce.
  • Stink Bugs – Stink bugs are another type of pest that will quickly consume any produce in your garden over time. While they are not known to often become large infestations, if the stink bug population in your yard is allowed to rise, they can become a serious problem.
  • Earwigs – Earwigs are another pest that is likely to be harmless if managed in small numbers. It’s important to note though that Earwigs can move into your home after eating away at your yard if they are not stopped. Be sure to keep track of any infestation in your garden that can potentially cause damage to your home if not kept under control.

Most of these pests are easy to recognize if you know which are looking for. While there are some “do it yourself” solutions online for some of these pests, in our opinion it is always best to contact a professional if you are worried that an infestation is beginning to get out of hand. You don’t want to lose precious time to fight an infestation if an exterminator would have the remedy on hand.

Common Critters that are Good for My Home

When designing a healthy yard or garden for your property, deciding what you’re going to plant is only part of the process. Understanding which creatures will benefit of your plant life is also a great thing to keep in mind.

Many of the critters, insects, and creatures some may consider to be pests are actually a great sign of a healthy ecosystem. When you are taking care of your garden, keep an eye out for these friendly “pests”, and think of ways to make their stay on your more inviting:

  • Honeybee – While some hives are an issue that must be immediately remedied, honeybees are actually fantastic partners to have alongside the development of your garden. By spreading out pollen and seeds, they can help keep your crops healthy are and promote growth. Bees can be territorial, and some species are not fond of humans, so a honeybee population should be kept in check.
  • Garter Snake – Like the bees above, there are many snakes you do need to watch out for and immediately call a professional to deal with if they are spotted. Garter snakes are not one of those snakes. Garter snakes will not harm your plants or your yard, but they will eat many of the rodents, slugs, snails, and other pests that are making a mess of your vegetation. They are also are much more scared of you then you are of them and will do their best to avoid humans, though they can for our ash and bite if they are caught off guard or scared.
  • Dragonfly – Dragonflies make fantastic predators to include in a garden. With great eyesight and fast wings, dragonflies will kill gnats, mosquitos, and other bugs that are looking to ruin your yard.
  • Ladybugs – One of the most well-known predators in the insect world, ladybugs are effective killers you want to have on your side to protect against pests and infestations. They will make quick work of any aphids, mites, or other small pests. While it is a quick fix to purchase adult ladybugs in bulk and release them into your garden, it can also be a fantastic long-term plan to develop the proper conditions for a naturally occurring ladybug presence on your property.
  • Green Lacewings – If you have an aphid infestation developing on your property, green lacewings are a beautiful and brutally effective way to mitigate those pests. The larvae of lacewings will make quick work of aphids, caterpillars, another bad bugs.

An important note to make about all these beneficial creatures is that their larvae are often just as effective or more effective at removing potential infestations as their adult forms. This means that while purchasing adults creatures and adding them to your garden can be a good idea, developing a natural population is going to be the best-case scenario.

While yard work and gardening are often viewed as peaceful hobbies, these beneficial critters made it very clear that “the best defense is a good offense,” when it comes to protecting your home.

How to Work with the Helpful Pests in Your Yard or Garden

As it is probably clear by now, there is no such thing as gardening without pests. You are not going to be able to develop the healthy ecosystem if there is no fauna to pair with your flora.

The best thing you can do then is lean into the critters who have decided to make your property their home. Invest in the animals that can benefit you, while doing your best to mitigate the pests that may grow into an infestation.

While direct cooperation with the creatures around your property is something that is most likely not an option, there are lots of steps you can personally take to minimize the risk of a pest invasion, and therefore assist that your other bugs in their goal to keep the pest population down. These are just a couple best practices that you should implement in your yard or garden if you want to get the most out of your helpful neighbors:

  • Encourage Predators – Rather than purchasing predators for your garden, which can create an invasive species if they are not native to your area, is a great idea to plant a variety of native plants in your yard. This will encourage the helpful sort of critters to call your property home over time.
  • Investigate Your Garden Regularly – Keeping an eye on your garden may seem like an obvious piece of advice, but taking the extra time to examine your plants for potential pests can mean the difference between catching an infestation in time or allowing it to bloom into a real problem. Bugs can also spend the winter down in the soil before crawling back into your garden when the temperature rises, so it’s good to keep the seasons in mind when you are checking for pests.
  • Keep Your Soil Healthy – Making sure that your earth is properly fertilized and regularly watered is a great way to promote plant growth in your garden. And again, there are several creatures that will till the soil for you if you are able to encourage their presence.

Creating a bountiful garden or a beautiful outdoor space is a point of pride for many homeowners. Keeping that same space free from infestations and your plants from being eaten away by pests can be the unexpected challenge after the landscaping though. With a little bit of research, some hard work, and an understanding of the environment outside your property, you can develop a healthy ecosystem free from pests.

It cannot be stated clearly enough though: if an infestation does begin to take shape on your property call a professional. Exterminators know how to handle different pest populations, and we’ll be able to keep them from getting out of hand, or worse, moving into your actual home and causing extensive damage there. If you’d like to discuss a yard examination or treatment with ExtermPRO, give us a call at 571-620-1168.