Looking to design a beautiful garden but are worried about pests invading your property? Don’t worry–it’s a common worry for everyone. It’s extremely difficult to get rid of pests as your garden is technically a part of the great outdoors.

Many people find that getting rid of things like ants, mosquitoes, and aphids can be fairly time-consuming, hence why they’ll give up on their garden plans and just give up on their backyard. But to help you out, we’ve prepared this guide to help you get rid of the most common garden pests and also prevent them from coming back. This should give you a blank slate to help you put your garden plans into action so you can design a beautiful and vibrant backyard.

Understand what’s eating your plants

It’s a good idea to do a bit of research by identifying what exactly is eating your plants. For example, if your leaves look deformed and dried, then it’s a good chance that you have aphids. If the leaves are discolored, then it could be mites. If there are clear holes and bite marks in your leaves, then it’s likely beetles, caterpillars, or sawflies.

By doing your research, you can identify the pest that’s invading your backyard and deal with them accordingly.

Dealing with pests that use your backyard to breed

There are a number of pests that won’t directly affect your garden but will use it as a breeding ground to then invade your home. For example, mosquitoes are a common pest that tends to lurk around for most of the day and only fly into your home during the evening.

For situations like this, a mosquito control service is generally the best option as there could be puddles of water around your home that are making it easy for them to breed. This could be water left in your gutter, it could be on your roof, or it could even be in a makeshift pond that you have.

Keep the balance of pests and understand that you can’t get rid of all of them

It’s impossible to get rid of every single pest or bug in your garden, but do remember that some of them can be beneficial to your garden. This is because when there are bugs like mites and aphids, there are also predators that will feed on them.

For example, bees and spiders can be beneficial because they’ll keep out other bugs while leaving your flowers and plants alone. Similarly, ants will typically leave your plants alone but they can get rid of some of the smaller pests and essentially protect your garden.

Get rid of any sources of food and water in and around your home

Some pests thrive on the scraps of food and water that you leave. If you focus on keeping your home clean, then it’s far less likely that pests will have sustenance to make your property attractive. This is usually only for the larger pests such as rats and mice.

Bonus tip

Remember that pests can still strike even after you’ve harvested your produce. It’s therefore important to store your harvest appropriately to prevent this. What this means in practice depends on the food item. It’s usually pretty easy to find out what you need to know by checking the internet. You can even get information on how to store more exotic produce, such as marijuana storage tips.

Another possibility is to preserve your produce in some way as quickly as you can. These days, your first option would probably be your freezer. If, however, you have limited freezer space (and/or a lot of produce), there are plenty of other options such as drying, making jam, or pickling. Again, the internet is your friend here.