I know this is a meme, but shit like this is why I allow wild growth on my property. First year I owned my home the ground got muddy as hell from the new build since the ground was all dug up and tilled.
From the second year on I’ve only mowed a path for my driveway and the front walkway and the rest grows wild. Sweetgrass and other native plants anywhere from like 1 to 3 feet tall and the area is high desert (Colorado) so the “weeds” suck up any moisture they can get, no flood, no mud. It’s great. I’ll never understand MFers in the rurals curating lawns.
Plus, it looks nice, and the deer in the area seem to like it as well.
Totally different ecosystem here in NW Florida, but I am also getting great results. 75% of the yard hasn’t seen a lawn mower in 2 years, the 25% that has is still fairly wild. Lots of wild plants, lots of non-native but compatible plants, plenty of surface water. We planted a few “ponds”, 150G and smaller. Thought they would take a year or two to take off. NOPE. The 150G I buried last spring was teeming with life in 2 weeks. Maybe I cheated by throwing water plants, from the river and creek in there, along with their native mud. :)
We’re the only house in the hood with; frogs (deafening last spring), hummingbirds, pollinators of all sorts (forgot to make a bee hotel this year), dragonflies (hope to have shitloads when the adults come after 2-years underwater), fewer mosquitoes, butterflies, can’t remember what all.
The insect population is worse than it was 4 short years ago, drastically worse. That scares me more than anything I’ve seen. Even in the hundreds of acres surrounding the hood, not much, not like it was. Hoping I can turn things around in my tiny part of the world.
It essentially all takes care of itself, it’s a whole ecosystem. There’s no standing water for mosquitos thanks to the foliage. There’s also lizards, the occasional frog, birds. The deer eat some of the taller stuff. Even with the deer, there’s at least one mountain lion in the area I’ve seen, which I presume helps keep the population reasonable. I dunno, it doesn’t really need any tending, other than to clear a path where I need.
Aside from that, my neighbor has pine trees, and occasionally pine cones take root and need their root- balls shoveled out. That’s the only big maintenance because I don’t want the big trees on my property. I wouldn’t mind, but for two things:
They always seem to root down near the road on my driveway path or walk-down.
I have solar panels and can’t have them growing up on the southeast side side of the house, and that’s where they tend to fall.
Besides that, I have to knock down the occasional wasp nest (paper wasps) on the house, but if they nest away from the house I leave them alone. It’s all minimal maintenance. If you let nature do its thing it tends to find a balance. Humans are the ones usually screwing it up.
I live in a decidedly different environment, but have also let my yard go to native plants (the HoA is mad, but the state passed laws protecting my native plant yard so they can get fucked) and it took a couple years for there to be a bug balance.
I had a ton of aphids the first year, but the second year the aphid wasps and lady bugs knew where I lived to handle them.
Not anymore, we have zebra mosquitoes. They grow in hedges and bushes and require very little water. They also come out in the warm daytime and will bite you 4-6 times in a row before it starts to itch.
You know it’s odd. We have no streams or ponds. I make certain we have no standing water around us by ensuring unused pots and other items are upturned, but we always have mosquitoes around. It’s forest around us which is very nice, but the mozzies get very thick. I am sure I miss some water, but not enough for the numbers I see. Don’t know how far they’ll travel, but there’s gotta be some junk somewhere on the neighbor’s property in the forest holding water.
They can breed in a few cups of water. Try what I did this year at our camp in the swamp. Purposefully set stagnant water traps, buckets or whatever. Get Mosquito Dunk. Another user here turned me onto that. Its bacteria that kill the larvae.
This was my first year, but it seemed to work. Hard to say because it’s a swamp with loads of neighbor trash and stagnant pools, but the actual camp seemed better. Didn’t hear a single blood sucker today. I know, it’s October, but it’s still in the high 80s down here.
Moskitos live anywhere there is stale water, so either clean it or have it wild enough that other insects outcompet them.
Put your compost pile somewhere you don’t walk past a lot, because that’s where flies congregate.
Ticks aren’t that mobile, they need some animal to carries them there.
I’ve got loads of stale water in 4 ponds from 150G down to 20G. I let those go wild and they filled with tadpoles eating the mosquito larvae and the water attracts dragonflies, the deadliest hunters on Earth. Part I didn’t expect, they went “natural” in 2 weeks! I think much of that was throwing native water plants with their mud balls I dug out.
For water you can’t control like that, say a birdbath, a lemming turned me onto Mosquito Dunk. Take a 1/4 piece and throw it in. Makes bacteria that kills the larvae. I set buckets of swamp water around my camp for traps, hit them and the 2 birdbaths with dunk once a month. Seemed to work, but I need to try again next year.
I love natural growth and we have plenty around (PNW), but that invasive Himalayan Blackberry is constantly creeping back out of the wild edges. We’ve done well enough pushing it back, but it is so pervasive and the animals help spread the seeds. That and the other noxious weeds (Scotch-broom, thistle, tansy, etc) have us quite busy doing our best to remove and keep out. It’s like spitting into the wind if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well. Oh well.
We also planted tons of native “deer-resistant” plants. They love it. I call it deer salad.
if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well
My fight with fire ants in the South. Insect populations have tanked over the last 4 years, but the fire ants are on the rampage in the surrounding forest. I poison my neighbor’s yards, it’s still a non-stop fight.
For any Southerner’s coming along; I don’t use any insecticides or herbicides except hydramethylnon. Yeah, it costs more, but a little dab’ll do ya. Amdro is a popular brand name, not sure who else uses it.
I know this is a meme, but shit like this is why I allow wild growth on my property. First year I owned my home the ground got muddy as hell from the new build since the ground was all dug up and tilled.
From the second year on I’ve only mowed a path for my driveway and the front walkway and the rest grows wild. Sweetgrass and other native plants anywhere from like 1 to 3 feet tall and the area is high desert (Colorado) so the “weeds” suck up any moisture they can get, no flood, no mud. It’s great. I’ll never understand MFers in the rurals curating lawns.
Plus, it looks nice, and the deer in the area seem to like it as well.
Totally different ecosystem here in NW Florida, but I am also getting great results. 75% of the yard hasn’t seen a lawn mower in 2 years, the 25% that has is still fairly wild. Lots of wild plants, lots of non-native but compatible plants, plenty of surface water. We planted a few “ponds”, 150G and smaller. Thought they would take a year or two to take off. NOPE. The 150G I buried last spring was teeming with life in 2 weeks. Maybe I cheated by throwing water plants, from the river and creek in there, along with their native mud. :)
We’re the only house in the hood with; frogs (deafening last spring), hummingbirds, pollinators of all sorts (forgot to make a bee hotel this year), dragonflies (hope to have shitloads when the adults come after 2-years underwater), fewer mosquitoes, butterflies, can’t remember what all.
The insect population is worse than it was 4 short years ago, drastically worse. That scares me more than anything I’ve seen. Even in the hundreds of acres surrounding the hood, not much, not like it was. Hoping I can turn things around in my tiny part of the world.
How do you deal with native fauna that lives in wild vegetation? Mosquitoes, flies, ticks, etc.?
It essentially all takes care of itself, it’s a whole ecosystem. There’s no standing water for mosquitos thanks to the foliage. There’s also lizards, the occasional frog, birds. The deer eat some of the taller stuff. Even with the deer, there’s at least one mountain lion in the area I’ve seen, which I presume helps keep the population reasonable. I dunno, it doesn’t really need any tending, other than to clear a path where I need.
Aside from that, my neighbor has pine trees, and occasionally pine cones take root and need their root- balls shoveled out. That’s the only big maintenance because I don’t want the big trees on my property. I wouldn’t mind, but for two things:
They always seem to root down near the road on my driveway path or walk-down.
I have solar panels and can’t have them growing up on the southeast side side of the house, and that’s where they tend to fall.
Besides that, I have to knock down the occasional wasp nest (paper wasps) on the house, but if they nest away from the house I leave them alone. It’s all minimal maintenance. If you let nature do its thing it tends to find a balance. Humans are the ones usually screwing it up.
I live in a decidedly different environment, but have also let my yard go to native plants (the HoA is mad, but the state passed laws protecting my native plant yard so they can get fucked) and it took a couple years for there to be a bug balance.
I had a ton of aphids the first year, but the second year the aphid wasps and lady bugs knew where I lived to handle them.
Nature will balance itself if possible
Mosquitos hardly exist in much of Colorado, so that probably helps them.
Mosquitoes need standing water
Not anymore, we have zebra mosquitoes. They grow in hedges and bushes and require very little water. They also come out in the warm daytime and will bite you 4-6 times in a row before it starts to itch.
You know it’s odd. We have no streams or ponds. I make certain we have no standing water around us by ensuring unused pots and other items are upturned, but we always have mosquitoes around. It’s forest around us which is very nice, but the mozzies get very thick. I am sure I miss some water, but not enough for the numbers I see. Don’t know how far they’ll travel, but there’s gotta be some junk somewhere on the neighbor’s property in the forest holding water.
They can breed in a few cups of water. Try what I did this year at our camp in the swamp. Purposefully set stagnant water traps, buckets or whatever. Get Mosquito Dunk. Another user here turned me onto that. Its bacteria that kill the larvae.
This was my first year, but it seemed to work. Hard to say because it’s a swamp with loads of neighbor trash and stagnant pools, but the actual camp seemed better. Didn’t hear a single blood sucker today. I know, it’s October, but it’s still in the high 80s down here.
Moskitos live anywhere there is stale water, so either clean it or have it wild enough that other insects outcompet them.
Put your compost pile somewhere you don’t walk past a lot, because that’s where flies congregate.
Ticks aren’t that mobile, they need some animal to carries them there.
I’ve got loads of stale water in 4 ponds from 150G down to 20G. I let those go wild and they filled with tadpoles eating the mosquito larvae and the water attracts dragonflies, the deadliest hunters on Earth. Part I didn’t expect, they went “natural” in 2 weeks! I think much of that was throwing native water plants with their mud balls I dug out.
For water you can’t control like that, say a birdbath, a lemming turned me onto Mosquito Dunk. Take a 1/4 piece and throw it in. Makes bacteria that kills the larvae. I set buckets of swamp water around my camp for traps, hit them and the 2 birdbaths with dunk once a month. Seemed to work, but I need to try again next year.
I love natural growth and we have plenty around (PNW), but that invasive Himalayan Blackberry is constantly creeping back out of the wild edges. We’ve done well enough pushing it back, but it is so pervasive and the animals help spread the seeds. That and the other noxious weeds (Scotch-broom, thistle, tansy, etc) have us quite busy doing our best to remove and keep out. It’s like spitting into the wind if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well. Oh well.
We also planted tons of native “deer-resistant” plants. They love it. I call it deer salad.
My fight with fire ants in the South. Insect populations have tanked over the last 4 years, but the fire ants are on the rampage in the surrounding forest. I poison my neighbor’s yards, it’s still a non-stop fight.
For any Southerner’s coming along; I don’t use any insecticides or herbicides except hydramethylnon. Yeah, it costs more, but a little dab’ll do ya. Amdro is a popular brand name, not sure who else uses it.
If this isn’t the most relatable thing that’s (kinda) specific to me