Making My Yard More Functional

Posted on: 24 October 2022

When you live in an area with a major tick problem, you may worry about the health risks that they bring with them, such as Lyme disease and West Nile disease. Because of these concerns, you may wonder what steps you can take to keep their population down on your property. 

If you have multiple trees in your yard that are not kept trimmed, you could be inviting the pests onto your property. There are a couple of ways that having your trees trimmed by a professional tree service can help control the tick population on your property.

1. Removes Dead, Rotting Branches That Attract Ticks as Potential Hiding Spots

One way that keeping the trees trimmed can help dissuade ticks from coming onto your property is that it removes potential hiding spots. When ticks come into an area, they look for shady, moist areas to hide in.

Dead, rotting branches serve as an ideal environment. They provide not only a hiding spot from which they can lay in wait and jump on passersby, but the moisture trapped within the rotting wood helps to sustain them. When the dead branches are removed from your trees, the ticks must look elsewhere for ideal spots.

2. Allows More UV Light from the Sun to Filter Through the Trees and onto Your Lawn

Another way that trimmed trees help to deter ticks from invading your lawn is that they allow more UV light to penetrate both the trees and the ground around them. Ticks prefer to stay in shady areas because the UV rays from the sun will dry out their exoskeleton quickly if they are forced to remain in the light.

If trees have excess branches, they choke out the light, providing shelter for the ticks. However, if a professional strategically removes the excess growth, the UV light will filter through. This makes it more difficult for the ticks to hide from the damaging UV rays of the sun.

When you keep the trees on your property trimmed, the removal of dead, rotting branches as well as excess growth help to minimize the tick population in your yard. However, since the various tree species have specific times and methods of keeping them trimmed, you should rely on a professional to do the work for you. If you need help with the population of ticks on your property, contact a tree service in your area to discuss available tick control options.