Unwanted Garden Visitors

Creating a garden is hard enough without having to deal with rodents, cats and other critters eating it. Animals can wreak havoc in a garden – munching on leaves, nibbling on flowers and overturning pots. But these critters don't have to ruin a gardener's playground. A variety of private and public organisations provide traps and training to humanely catch pests.

The first step in dealing with the pests is to conduct a visual assessment of the area. Look at what plants the pests eat and clean the area around the garden. It may help to look out at the garden at night to see what sort of activity happens then.

After determining how many traps are needed in the garden and the location of the traps, it's important to bait them. A pest control company, a hardware store or a county council's pest control department can explain what bait will best attract the pest to the trap.

Trappers should monitor the traps frequently. During extreme heat or cold or rainy weather traps should be checked more frequently. Also, you should stay away from snare traps, which just trap an animal's leg because this causes severe discomfort for the pest.

Of course, if you don't want to trap, then you can try to modify the habitat that attracts the animals. In most cases, the presence of a "nuisance animal" is just the "effect" half of a "cause and effect" scenario. The "cause" half is where our answers lie, and is almost invariably a food source for an attractive bit of habitat.

The trick is to fix the cause. Merely removing the pests won't have long term benefits – as long as attractants remain, more animals from the surrounding area will take the place of any removed.

Bright lights or loud radios will deter some animals from frequenting a garden, others need more aggressive actions. To keep rabbits out of the vegetable or flower garden place chicken wire about 2 feet high around the perimeter of the plants. The chicken wire should be buried about 6 to 8 inches deep.

The same wire can also protect trees. Raised beds, about 18 inches off the ground will also deter plants. For young plants consider placing a container over the plant so little critters can't get to it.

Whether a you choose to trap or find more creative solutions, there are many ways to protect plants without killing the pests.

Article provided by Dynamic Pest Control