How To Keep Mosquitoes At Bay

If you like to sit outside in the summer, you probably have a bit of a garden, patio or deck that you like to relax on of a summer's evening. With a few plants for colour and perfume, it makes a perfect place to relax. Add a water feature and a cold drink and I am away.

That is until five or six o' clock, when the light begins to weaken and the mosquitoes come out. They spoil it for me or at least they used to until I discovered neat little tricks to hold the mosquitoes at bay - out of my yard and into someone else's. Not that I wish mosquitoes on my friends, but they will go somewhere else, if they do not come to me.

The first thing to do is learn a bit concerning the mosquito. Mosquitoes are not actually very powerful fliers and they are easily injured and easily blown off course. Therefore, most of the mosquitoes you meet in your garden were born there. Some people say tht mosquitoes do not fly more than a couple of metres from where they were hatched.

They like to lay their eggs in still water and it need not be that much. Millions of mosquitoes are born in stagnant water that collects in the leaves of living plants. Now, I am not recommending that you cut all your plants down, but you did ought to clean away any old junk in the garden that can hold water.

You can fill in holes and indentations in paths, stow away watering cans and unused flower pots, clean blocked gutters, clear away dead leaves and maybe think about the plants that you are purchasing next time you are in the garden centre. If you have a water feature, make sure that there are fish in it that eat insects - some do not.

The next thing to do is find out which plant life mosquitoes do not like and they do have their preferences, just like we do. Mosquitoes abhor anything that smells of lemons. So, you can plant, lemon balm, citronella, lemon trees, lemon grass and anything else that smells like lemons.

If the plants can not quite produce enough lemon smell some evenings, you can help them with lemon-scented candles or citronella oil rubbed directly onto your skin. It is a perfectly natural oil, so ought to not injure you, your children or your pets. Dogs suffer from mosquitoes as much as we do.

As mentioned above, mosquitoes are not robust fliers, so a good fan, normally kills hundreds of them a night by dashing them against walls and the fan's blades. A favourite of mine on a bad night, is a mosquito trap.

One that has highly-charged electrical wires behind an attractive ultra-violet light, the sound of them crackling away on the electrified wire is very pleasing and highly effective

One mosquito trap can clear a whole garden, but my all-time favourite is the tennis racquet type bug-zapper, the one that looks like a child's tennis racquet. Anything that gets through your defences, is a sure gonner, if you have a racquet bug zapper

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several subjects, but is at this time concerned with Handheld Bug Zapper devices. If you would like to know more, go to our website at Indoor Bug Zapper