Do you have mulch or stone landscaping surrounding your home? You might think that it can be a way to keep pests away from your home, but in reality, your landscaping could be hiding pests.
Does landscaping keep pests away from your home?
Most people are looking for ways to keep pests away from their home, and often people think that their landscaping keeps pests out. Unfortunately, your landscaping may be hiding more pests and keeping them safe, rather than keeping them out.
Pests need three things to survive: water, shelter and food. Depending on your type of landscaping this could actually provide all three.
How much water access pests have throughout your yard is directly impacted by what kind of landscaping you have. Grass for example tends to absorb water the fastest. With a yard being mostly grass, this can help to reduce standing water.
Many pests such as mosquitoes react favorably to standing water, and by eliminating it, you can reduce their numbers. Unfortunately, grass also harbors pests such as ants, and they can make nests virtually anywhere in grass.
Rodent pests as well as things like moles and voles can also easily find food and shelter throughout grassy areas, which is another disadvantage grass has. Other pests like certain spider species and particular mosquito species can have a harder time surviving in grassy areas around your home.
Is mulch or stone landscaping helpful to keep pests away from your home?
Since a lot of pests do favor grassy living spaces, you might be wondering if mulch or stone would be a better option to protect your home. Much and stone actually have their own set of problems for attracting pests.
While you might keep some voles, moles, and ants, away from your home with less spaces to build their dens and nests, it also attracts more of other types of pests.
Mulch and stone absorb less water than grassy areas, and they also create many opportunities for natural shelter for pests. With water absorbing less quickly, this can lead to pockets of standing water.
This standing water can be used by pests as a space to simply drink from, or with other pests, such as mosquitoes, it can be an opportune place to lay their eggs and breed.
The last thing you want to do is be building safe havens for pests, but that’s actually what landscaping like mulch and stone can do. With many hiding places as well as water sources, a lot of pests will make these landscaping features their home.
These growing pest populations can also attract more pests like spiders that are predators. They are drawn to these highly frequented areas of pests, because not only do they have water and shelter, but they also have many options for food as well.
What happens when the temperatures change with all these pests living near your home?
Having a lot of pests right near your home in your landscaping might sound better than them being inside, but with a slight change in environment those pests can be headed into your home.
Throughout the year, as temperatures shift and seasons change, pests will attempt to enter your home. This could be in search of new food and water sources or new places to survive.
This doesn’t just happen when it gets cold either. Pest can move into your home from a heat wave, thunderstorms, dry spell and more.
This is another reason to have your home treated with a pest control barrier to keep those shifting pests from getting in when the environment changes. Having an excess of pests hiding in your landscaping can make this shift even worse.
You probably aren’t going to rip out your landscaping to reduce pest activity, so we recommend sealing cracks and crevices around your home and closing off entry points, in addition to having a treatment from a pest control service to reduce pest issues if you have landscaping around your home.
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