As a Northern New Jersey homeowner, it’s often a challenge to keep up with regular lawn care and maintenance. Keeping your lawn green and healthy not only adds great curb appeal, but it also increases your home’s value and provides a healthier outdoor lifestyle for your family.
By providing professional lawn pest control services in NJ for your home, you can ensure a greener, healthier lawn and a safer outdoor environment for your children and pets. Even with regular lawn care and maintenance, your lawn is still susceptible to a variety of outdoor pests and lawn diseases that can cause significant damage to your landscape. It’s essential to protect your home with pest control to keep your lawn and landscape beautiful and pest free year-round. Here are five good reasons to invest in lawn pest control services in NJ.
Prevent Lawn Diseases
Many lawn diseases are caused by different types of fungus that attack your soil, grass roots and turf. They typically cause unsightly brown or yellow patches, shredded or shriveled grass blades or stunted, unhealthy grass growth. There are numerous fungal diseases that are common to Bergen County lawns:
- Dollar Spot – Resembles silver dollars and thrives on malnourished, dry lawns. Small, white, cobweb-like spots appear in the morning and turn brown later in the day.
- Rust – Typically appears on grass blades in late summer. Grass blades turn orange or reddish-brown, and as the fungus progresses they turn black. Grass will thin, wither and die.
- Plythium Blight – Likes to invade newly seeded lawns in spring or fall. It causes large, flattened brownish-black patches of grass up to two feet wide. Grass usually dies within 24 hours.
- Fusarium Patch – Typically appears in late winter and early spring. Circular patches of dead grass up to three inches across develop in your lawn. As winter snow melts, a whitish-pink mold appears.
- Fairy Ring – Usually seen in spring or fall, bright green circular areas appear in the lawn. Rings can spread up to 50 feet in diameter.
- Mushrooms – A common fungal growth in rainy weather, mushrooms won’t harm your lawn, but they can be dangerous if ingested by children and pets.
Prevent Harmful Insects
Lawns are constantly under threat, not just from fungal diseases, but also from damaging insects that invade soil and turf. These harmful insects typically live in the soil and destroy turf roots. This depletes essential nutritional support for grass and plants. These insects are often small and hard to see under the grass, but they can cause extensive lawn damage in a short period of time without lawn pest control services in NJ. Common New Jersey lawn pests include:
- Grubs – In early summer months, these small, worm-like insects invade the soil under your lawn. Yellow or brown patches develop and sod lifts up easily around the patches.
- Chinch Bugs – These insects attack thick, sunny areas of grass in late summer and early fall causing yellow or reddish-brown patches in the lawn.
- Japanese Beetles – Typically seen in early summer, beetles lay their eggs in the soil. Eggs develop into white grubs that eat your grass roots and turf.
- Army Worms – Resembling small caterpillars, these insects feed at night in the fall when temperatures are cool and air is moist. They invade in large numbers and cause brown patches or bare spots in your lawn.
- European Crane Flies – These insects look like large mosquitoes. In the fall, they hatch their larvae who feed on grass roots during the winter. By spring, you may see yellow spots and areas of missing turf in your lawn.
Protect Your Garden Areas
If you’re like many Bergen County homeowners, you probably enjoy beautiful garden areas with colorful plants and flowers in your landscape. Garden areas can provide year-round beauty with blooming plants, exotic textures and border accents that draw attention to your lawn and landscape. Unfortunately, there are many types of outdoor pests and small animals who are also attracted to these beautiful garden areas, but not for their beauty, for their next meal. Although many garden pests are cute little critters, they can quickly destroy your garden. Organic lawn pest control services in NJ will prevent harm to the fuzzy critters while protecting your garden areas. Common Northern NJ garden pests include:
- Chipmunks – Eastern chipmunks are common to Northern NJ areas. They typically feed on seeds, berries and insects, but they will dig up and eat seedlings and flower bulbs. As experienced burrowers, chipmunks can cause significant damage, especially in large numbers.
- Moles – Moles eat insects like grubs and chinch bugs that live in the soil. They dig deep tunnels underground and create volcanic-like mounds throughout your lawn and garden. They are often difficult to get rid of once they begin burrowing in your lawn.
- Rabbits – Rabbits, the most common garden pests, will eat flowers, plant leaves and stems, vegetables, berries and seeds. They are typically seen in the spring when new growth is at its peak. Signs of rabbits in your garden are visible tracks, round droppings and gnawed woody plant stems.
- Raccoons – Raccoons feed on vegetation, but they will be attracted to any type of edible garden vegetables and fruit. They like to dig, so you may notice holes in your lawn and garden areas before you notice the raccoons. They are nocturnal and usually look for food at night.
- Deer – Deer are spotted in many Northern New Jersey landscapes. They graze mostly on vegetation, but they may be attracted to garden areas with tasty plants and fruit. Although deer are shy and gentle creatures by nature, they can destroy your lawn and garden areas quickly without proper lawn pest control services in NJ.
Protect Your Family and Pets
Insects and outdoor pests not only cause problems in your lawn and landscape, but they can also cause harm to your family and pets. Dangerous outdoor pests should be eliminated as quickly as possible to protect children and pets who are especially susceptible to harm. If you notice any signs of dangerous outdoor pests in your yard, contact a landscape professional who provides lawn care pest control services in NJ right away.
Spiders
Spiders are mostly a nuisance type of pest. Most are not dangerous, and even offer benefits by eating insects. However, a few varieties have potent bites or stings that can cause redness and swelling, itching, skin rashes and pain. Black widow spiders and brown recluse spiders, both common in Northern NJ landscapes, are considered to be dangerous because their venom is powerful enough to cause serious reactions like nerve damage and ulcerated skin tissue. If bitten by a poisonous spider, you should seek medical attention immediately.
Fleas and Ticks
Common in all landscapes, fleas and ticks are most prevalent during the spring and summer when the weather is warm. Professional lawn pest control services in NJ should be a regular part of your lawn care and maintenance to prevent fleas and ticks. Flea bites can cause skin irritation, itching and blood loss, and some species carry bubonic plague and typhus fever. Other species are carriers of tapeworms which can be passed to both humans and pets if fleas are ingested. Ticks carry and transmit diseases like Lyme disease, Colorado tick fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Lyme disease, caused by Deer Ticks, can cause a variety of illness symptoms that range from mild to severe with repeat infections year after year if exposed to tick bites.
Mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are attracted to any landscape areas that provide an easy access to water and food sources. Females, the only ones that bite, pose dangers to humans because they have the ability to transmit serious diseases including West Nile Virus, Malaria, and now Zika Virus. Mosquito bites cause itching and swelling in humans, but can also cause more serious illness. Mosquito bites in dogs can cause heart worms, leading to severe illness and death of your pet. You can reduce mosquitoes in your landscape by eliminating all standing water and debris on your property and providing regular lawn pest control services in NJ.
Stinging Insects
Wasps, hornets and yellow jackets deliver powerful, painful stings that can cause redness, swelling, pain and infection. Small children are particularly susceptible to stings, and both children and adults who are allergic to bee stings can have serious reactions. Allergic reactions to bee stings can cause breathing problems and anaphylactic shock, a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction which requires immediate emergency medical treatment.
Keep Pests Out of Your Home
Many varieties of outdoor pests not only invade your lawn and landscape, they often invade your home. Whether you live in a well-maintained suburb or on a more remote, rural property, you are not immune to outdoor pests entering your home. They can come in through open doors and windows, basements, attics and foundation cracks. Lawn pest control services in NJ are essential to keep outdoor pests out of your home.
Roaches
Roaches are hardy outdoor pests that are difficult to eliminate. They are known to spread germs and diseases, and can also cause allergic reactions and asthma symptoms in some people. Roaches reproduce quickly, so you certainly don’t want them anywhere around your home and family.
Rats and Mice
Rats and mice typically invade a lawn and landscape looking for food. They are especially drawn to overgrown lawns and ill-maintained landscapes with any type of debris in the yard. Rats and mice can gnaw through many different types of materials, including cinder block, aluminum siding and even concrete in some cases, causing significant damage to your home. Rat scratches and bites can result in disease and rat-bite fever, and rat urine can spread a bacterial infection, known as leptospirosis, that affects both humans and animals. Rats and mice often enter a home during cold weather looking for warm shelter and food. Lawn pest control services in NJ will prevent home invasion and protect your family and pets from illness.
