Winter Pest Control for Your Garden and Yard
When the temperature starts falling, do you cozy up indoors and delay lawn care until spring? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. As winter approaches, many homeowners believe that it’s the ideal time to relax their approach to pest control.
Even though you may be walking in a winter wonderland, that doesn’t mean pests are a distant memory. Pest activity may lessen during the colder months, but many pests remain an active threat to your outdoor spaces. Join Catseye Pest Control in examining winter pest control tips to learn how to protect your yard from pests year-round.
Strategies to Protect Your Garden and Yard from Winter Pests
Many pests don’t die off in winter. Pests like grubs, stink bugs, fleas, and ticks can survive the cold weather, with many taking up residence under the soil and in brush piles. As a result, winter lawn preparation can set the tone for the health of your outdoor spaces in the spring.
The following eight strategies will help you provide pest and rodent control, which, in turn, supports healthy lawn growth in spring, reduces your garden’s vulnerability to cold weather damage, and protects against yard and garden diseases. Let’s look at some proactive measures you can take in the winter.
Clean Up the Yard
Fall and spring aren’t the only seasons to consider doing outdoor cleanup. Removing debris, brush piles, and dead leaves helps eliminate hiding spots for rodents, ticks, and other pests. Other precautionary measures include:
- Leaving the grass at a height of approximately 2 to 3 inches to help protect the lawn from cold temperatures after the last mowing
- Removing any dead or damaged plants
- Transferring container plants indoors or to protected areas
- Cutting back ornamental grasses and removing garden annuals that have died
Prune Your Plants
Winter is a great time to remove dead trees and prune the rest. Pruning shrubs and trees once they are dormant, a state typically marked by a loss of leaves, offers multiple benefits. Once the leaves are gone, you can easily assess the plant’s structure and look for dead or damaged limbs and branches. Winter pruning can also encourage healthy spring growth and avoid the spread of pests and diseases. Additionally, it also reduces levels of a pheromone that can attract insects, helping to reduce the potential for infestations.
Use Pest-Resistant Plant Varieties
Borrow a strategy from Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by choosing plants that are not only suitable for the soil, climate, and light, but also capable of resisting infestations. For example, catmint blooms with aromatic lavender flowers resist both pests and diseases, as do spring-blooming trilliums and hummingbird-attracting bee balm.
Install Physical Barriers
Fencing off the garden in spring can help prevent rabbits, deer, and other crop-munching wildlife from destroying the garden during the growing season. Physical barriers can also protect your property in winter by keeping all types of wildlife out of the yard.
Replacing weatherstripping around windows and doors and sealing off potential entryways that pests can use to move indoors can reduce the risk of infestations. For example, Cat-Guard Exclusion Systems offer long-term, chemical-free barriers that target specific areas of homes, businesses, and other structures.
Inspect and Repair Structures
Check gutters and downspouts for clogs, cracks, splits, and sagging and inspect the roof for any loose or missing shingles. Left unaddressed, these issues can pose a safety risk and create an environment that is ideal for pests to nest. Likewise, repairing any damage to outbuildings, fences, and other structures can help prevent wood-eating insects from moving in.
Apply Horticultural Oils
Horticultural oils are designed for pest control. These plant-based or petroleum products undergo filtration processes to remove any compounds that could harm the plants. They typically don’t harm wildlife or beneficial insects but essentially smother overwintering pests, resulting in reduced pest activity in spring.
Monitor and Trap Pests
Regularly inspecting your yard and garden to watch for potential pests can help stop future infestations before they start. Many people overlook the potential for evergreens, conifers, and other plants to host pests during winter. However, defoliating insects like gypsy moths deposit their egg masses on limbs and branches.
By pruning them or removing them, it not only reduces the spring population. It also alerts you to areas in need of spring treatment. In addition to pests, keep a watchful eye out for rodents and nuisance wildlife, which can damage structures and introduce pests like mites into the area.
Consult with a Professional
You know your property, but it can be easy to potentially overlook potential hazards. Professionals have the expertise to spot pests and overwintering insects and develop strategies to best protect your garden and yard. Additionally, when you need wildlife cleanup and waste removal, professionals have the training and equipment to accomplish it safely, humanely, and effectively.
Contact Catseye for Professional Winter Pest Control
You may know how to protect your yard from pests and still require professional assistance. Year-round pest control ensures that people, pets, and properties remain safe and free of pesky insects, rodents, and wildlife. For winter pest control, removal, cleanup, and exclusion services you can rely on, turn to the professionals at Catseye.
We have decades of experience, a solid commitment to each of our clients, and a tailored approach that begins with a detailed inspection to assess your unique situation.
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