Mosquitoes are the bane of every good summer evening, and it often seems like there isn’t much you can do about them. Bug spray might be great while enjoying the outdoors on a hike, but seems like over kill if you want to slip outside to read a book or relax with guests for a few minutes. There are a few passive ways that you can make your backyard mosquito-free that require very little effort, but constantly keep mosquitoes away.
Make sure mosquitoes don’t have a reason to hang around. Get rid of stagnant pools of water around your property. This means everything from an over grown mud puddle to buckets filled with water. Eliminating these mosquito breeding places will reduce the population in the neighborhood. If you find a stagnant pool of water of a piece of land you don’t know who owns, get in contact with your homeowners association management group to figure out who is responsible for that plot of land and work out a way to clear the water.
Certain scents drive mosquitoes away from your yard as well. Citronella candles or torches help when they’re lit. Also try planting some catnip around your property. Cat nip not only makes felines flip out; it also keeps mosquitoes at bay. Sacred basil and lime basil both produce oil that is toxic to mosquitoes. Thyme can keep away mosquitoes (and is great in your kitchen too!). The smell of peppermint is also great at keeping mosquitoes out of your yard. Lavender looks and smells wonderful, and, you guessed it, also repels mosquitoes. To sum up, try keeping these scents around to repel mosquitoes:
- Citronella
- Cat nip
- Sacred basil and lime basil
- Thyme
- Peppermint
- Lavender
Finally, you can take care of mosquitoes with bats. Bats might be small, but they have to eat thousands of bugs, including mosquitos, every night to survive. You can easily encourage bats to live in your back yard by putting up a bat box on your house or in a tree around your yard. Every night bats will come out and munch on the mosquito population in your back yard.
These ideas will help you get started on your mosquito-free yard. Be sure to check your Homeowners Association regulations before you start planting or mounting bat boxes in your yard. There might not be many days in the summer left, but you should enjoy them free of biting insects. Plus, you can get a jump on the flying nuisances next year with a bit of planning in the fall.
