Our Lawn & Maintenance Blog

Having a home garden can be a great option for anyone that has a green thumb or wants to grow their own produce. While having a home garden can be a great experience, many people will find that keeping pests out can be a challenge. Fortunately, there are four tips that can be followed to keep pests out of your garden.

Introduce Beneficial Insects

While most people want to keep insects out of their garden, they can actually be beneficial when it comes to controlling pests. Direct Energy explains that aster, petunias, polygoniums, and St. John’s Wort are good at attracting hunting spiders, which will remove pests for you. If the idea of bringing in spiders doesn’t sit well with you, then try to attract ladybugs. Ladybugs like cosmos, sunflowers, yarrow, fennel, goldenrod, and marigolds. These insects, and certain types of plants, are shown to be able to help control your pest population. Some of the best plants that can prevent certain pests include marigold and lemon thyme.

Natural Pest Sprays

If you are trying to keep pests out, it can be easy to try to go to the gardening store and buy the most effective sprays possible. However, these sprays are often full of toxins and can be dangerous. Because of this, chemicals should only be saved for professional use. Instead, you should use more natural pest sprays. doTERRA explains that certain essential oils can be used to deter insects when used right.

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Snow and it's Effect on Plants

Like many things, too much or too little of anything can be bad. The same can be said of snow. 

On the one hand, snow can be extremely beneficial to plants. A blanket of snow can act as an insulator, protecting the roots of your plants. This can save them from the heave of the freeze and thaw, which happens often here in the Midwest. When the ground fluctuates between frozen and thaw, the roots of many plants can be forced out of the ground, and this will have a detrimental effect on your plants, possibly killing them. 

Another huge benefit of snow is the moisture. Snow provides much-needed water to plant roots, both during the Winter season and well into the Spring growing season. If there is a slow warm up, this water is available for a long period of time and is very manageable for plants to take up. Much of the water soaks into the underground aquifer and becomes available later in the season.

Our last few winters have been seriously lacking in snow, and it was evident once Spring hit. Many plants were weakened from a drought state over the winter and never recovered. So if lack of snow is an issue, don't forget that your plants still need water!

On the other hands, too much snow can affect your plants in other destructive ways. Too much moisture can lead to soggy areas, which in turn are more prone to problems with the freeze and thaw. Laying a heavy layer of mulch before...