I love natural growth and we have plenty around (PNW), but that invasive Himalayan Blackberry is constantly creeping back out of the wild edges. We’ve done well enough pushing it back, but it is so pervasive and the animals help spread the seeds. That and the other noxious weeds (Scotch-broom, thistle, tansy, etc) have us quite busy doing our best to remove and keep out. It’s like spitting into the wind if the other land-owners around don’t do it as well. Oh well.
We also planted tons of native “deer-resistant” plants. They love it. I call it deer salad.
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 1 hour ago
How do you deal with native fauna that lives in wild vegetation? Mosquitoes, flies, ticks, etc.?
prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 24 minutes ago
I live in a decidedly different environment, but have also let my yard go to native plants (the HoA is mad, but the state passed laws protecting my native plant yard so they can get fucked) and it took a couple years for there to be a bug balance.
I had a ton of aphids the first year, but the second year the aphid wasps and lady bugs knew where I lived to handle them.
Nature will balance itself if possible
tomkatt@lemmy.world 54 minutes ago
It essentially all takes care of itself, it’s a whole ecosystem. There’s no standing water for mosquitos thanks to the foliage. There’s also lizards, the occasional frog, birds. The deer eat some of the taller stuff. Even with the deer, there’s at least one mountain lion in the area I’ve seen, which I presume helps keep the population reasonable. I dunno, it doesn’t really need any tending, other than to clear a path where I need.
Aside from that, my neighbor has pine trees, and occasionally pine cones take root and need their root- balls shoveled out. That’s the only big maintenance because I don’t want the big trees on my property. I wouldn’t mind, but for two things:
They always seem to root down near the road on my driveway path or walk-down.
I have solar panels and can’t have them growing up on the southeast side side of the house, and that’s where they tend to fall.
Besides that, I have to knock down the occasional wasp nest (paper wasps) on the house, but if they nest away from the house I leave them alone. It’s all minimal maintenance. If you let nature do its thing it tends to find a balance. Humans are the ones usually screwing it up.
Denjin@feddit.uk 1 hour ago
Mosquitoes need standing water
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
Moskitos live anywhere there is stale water, so either clean it or have it wild enough that other insects outcompet them.
Put your compost pile somewhere you don’t walk past a lot, because that’s where flies congregate.
Ticks aren’t that mobile, they need some animal to carries them there.