When you hire lawn care services in Atlanta, you probably do not realize you are also hiring a partner in your battle with pests that live around you. In fact, you may not even realize there is a battle going on. Here are how your landscaping choices can reduce pests and their opportunities to affect you.

The Basics: What Motivates Pests

Instinctively, all pests, in fact, all living beings, look for food, water, optimal environments to live, a place to breed and security from enemies. For most humans, the place that meets all that criteria is a combination of location and a home. The same holds true for pests, be they rodents, insects, reptiles or any other living animal that makes a nuisance of itself.

The Equation

Understanding what motivates a pest and how that motivation affects their choices for nesting, eating, etc., whether it is a groundhog or a wasp or anything in between, is the first step in defeating them. The formula is pretty basic: Deprive items of that list of criteria and you reduce the likelihood a pest will find your landscaping attractive. 

The Solution

Working in coordination with your landscaping and residential lawn care services to make choices that reduce the attractiveness of your yard to pests is the best way of depriving them of what they are looking for in a home. The following steps are an example of that coordination.

Look for Pest Signs: You and your landscapers need to look for signs that pests are arriving in the spring and trying to lock down a home. Signs can include:

• Underground tunnels
• Evidence of ant trails or mounds
• Wasp nests
• Damage to plants

When these signs are discovered, taking swift action to eradicate the pest will help avoid an infestation.

Choose Wisely: Not every great looking bush, shrub, flower or tree is a good choice if controlling pests is the goal. Flowering plants and fruits, for example, attract bees and wasps, so putting them near walkways or your home could invite an altercation.

Use Less Mulch: Mulch is great for controlling weeds, but unless it is replaced every spring, it builds up and provides a great nesting ground for ants, mice, centipedes and even bees. 

Drain standing water: Water attracts just about everything, but the most notorious is mosquitoes, which can carry disease. Remove all standing water as quickly as possible to deprive the mosquitoes of a breeding ground.

By working with landscaping and lawn care services in Atlanta, you can make your property attractive, just not to pests.