Sidebar: Natural Landscaping: Native Plants and Planting Strategies for Green Development
The idea of having wild area around homes has always raised concerns for some—whether because of snakes or foxes, spiders or mosquitoes. Now Lyme Disease, borne by the tiny deer tick, has brought these concerns to a fever pitch in some parts of the country—particularly the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Interest in controlling ticks is changing the way many landscapes are managed and—in some heavily tick-infested areas—leading to measures as extreme as paving over fields!
Far better is the highly targeted control of deer ticks at their nymph stage, when the white-footed mouse is the primary vector. Deer ticks have a two-year life cycle; in the spring and summer of their second year, when they are in the nymph stage, they feed primarily on the white-footed mouse. A new tick-control system, the MaxForce Tick Management System (www.maxforcetms.com), involves the placement of plastic boxes on a property. Mice enter these boxes and are treated with an insecticide that kills ticks feeding on them. Testing has found an 80% drop in the deer tick population within one year with this system.