Homes with gardens are more attractive and pleasing to the eye. They can make a house look like a home, and the flowering plants and trimmed shrubberies can easily make any home look elegant.
Gardens are an extension of the house. You can have your meals and parties outside; your children can play in it; you can even take a nap under a shade in your garden; or you can simply use the garden as a source of solace, peace, and tranquility. As an extension of your home, it should also receive proper care and maintenance. But why is a regular clean-up good for your garden, aside from making your property pretty and relaxing?
It Can Help Keep Pests Out
Without a doubt, a clean garden can help keep pests out. Pests can live just about anywhere, but their population can really flourish in dirty places. Gardens that have stagnant pools of water, mounds of debris and leaves, piles of rotting wood, tall grass, untrimmed shrubberies, etc. are more prone to pest infestation than those gardens that are clean and regularly cared for. This is because dirty gardens attract pestiferous insects such as mosquitoes, cockroaches, beetles, ants, giving the ample hiding places where they can easily feed and breed. Dirty gardens also attract rodents and reptiles that are scavenging for food. If the garden is pest infested, there’s no stopping them from invading your home.
However, if you regularly give your garden a good cleaning by trimming the bushes, pruning the trees, moving the lawn, getting rid of debris, you’re reducing the population of pests and decreasing the risk of having them inside your home.
It Can Decrease Health Risks
As mentioned earlier, dirty gardens attract pests. The more pests you have in the garden, the higher the chances that they’ll infest your property, and the higher the risk of these pests bringing sickness and diseases into your home. Pests, after all, are very notorious when it comes to spreading diseases. In fact, it was the rodents that spread the Bubonic Plague that wiped out millions of people. It’s the mosquitoes that are spreading diseases like dengue fever, malaria, and West Nile disease. Cockroaches carry viruses and bacteria that can cause food poisoning and gastrointestinal problems. Rodents like rats, mice, rabbits, squirrels, etc. can carry rhabdovirus, which causes rabies. Ticks carry viruses that cause Lyme disease, tularemia, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Feve; while fleas can cause flea tapeworm infection. There are also the ants, spiders, bees, wasps, scorpions, and other pestiferous insects to think of. If someone with weak or compromised immune system gets stung or bitten by one, he can suffer from severe allergic reactions, necessitating immediate hospitalization. Really, there are so many diseases that humans can get from pests.
If you want to avoid these diseases, then see to it that your garden is clean and neat. Make sure that the pest population is controlled, if not eliminated. If usual trapping of rodents, using repellents and simple pest control, and regular thorough cleaning of your home and garden are not enough, then it’s time to avail of the services of your local pest control company to completely get rid of them for you.
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Jennifer Dallman is a freelance writer for PreventivePestControl.com. Your garden is the most visible part of your property, and as such, it also deserves proper care and maintenance, one of which is keeping it pest-free.
