• The property perimeter
• Wooded trails or walking paths
• Perennial flower beds that are shaded

The idea is to focus on the areas of the property where humans could encounter blacklegged ticks most frequently, while leaving open, sunny spaces of the lawn chemical-free. This approach is better for the environment because it limits the amount of insecticide on the property.

Perimeter treatments come in both liquid and granular forms, and work best when they contain low concentrations of either bifenthrin or permethrin as the active ingredient. According to TERC, microorganisms break both of these substances down in the top 4 cm of the soil surface, so neither chemical will leach into the soil.

Keep in mind, though, that permethrin is extremely toxic to aquatic life (in any form), and to cats and bees (when wet). So do not use it near any bodies of water on your property, and keep your cats inside until the treatment has dried. Also, be aware of any beehives around your home before using permethrin. In fact, to protect all pollinators, it is best to apply any pesticide before dawn or after dusk. We’re only out to get ticks here!

According to TERC, the best approach to perimeter treatment is to hire a licensed Professional Pest Control Applicator who also has experience with controlling/exterminating ticks in the environment.

For tips about what to look for when hiring a company to treat your yard, as well as the best timeframes for treatments, check out TERC’s Helpful Hints.

For information about TERC’S ongoing experiments with new “minimal risk natural products” to see which ones will be effective for tick control, click here. You can also see them actually doing the research in the video below.

Another way to control the blacklegged tick population in your yard is by simply raking up and removing leaf litter. Yes, this job is not that much fun, and it can be more tiring than it looks. But, by ridding your property of leaf litter, you are actually removing the preferred habitat for blacklegged ticks.

Leaf litter provides the ideal shady, humid conditions for a nymph tick to thrive, and we humans often come into contact with it without really thinking. Our kids play in it. Our pets roll in it. And, every encounter with leaf litter represents a prime opportunity for a blacklegged tick to attach.

The nymphal stage of a blacklegged tick’s development is viewed as one of the most dangerous phases, because the nymph tick is so tiny that it will often go undetected before it has fed and infected a host. All it takes is one bite from this poppy seed-sized bug to completely alter a person’s life.

So, while raking, bagging, and disposing of leaves may cause a temporary backache, getting this litter out of your lawn will prevent permanent heartache down the road.

Learn more about a study conducted by Robert A Jordan and Terry L Schutlze entitled “To Reduce Tick Encounters, Where You Dump Your Leaves Matters” published in Entomology Today.

Just remember to follow the protocols for Before Going Outdoors and After Coming Back Indoors when you are raking and removing leaves.

While it is not so fun to have to walk further than the patio in the snow and muck to get wood for the fireplace, keeping your wood pile in an area of the yard where people rarely go will help reduce the blacklegged tick population around your home.

By moving the wood further out, you are also relocating the mice that like to hang out in those piles. And, mice are the primary carriers of Lyme-infected blacklegged ticks.

The thing about blacklegged ticks is that they are not terribly adventurous hunters, and they can’t fly or leap. This means that they are very dependent on being carried by the hosts that they feed on from one hunting ground to another.

So, if you remove a rodent host by relocating its favorite wood pile hiding place to a lower-traffic area of your yard, you will also further reduce your chances of encountering blacklegged ticks in the recreational spaces on your property.

You could even take a few more preventative steps by making sure that the new wood pile is stacked neatly and its new location is as dry as possible – which would further discourage mice.

Also, consider inserting Tick Tubes (see action 4) into the new wood pile. While these will not discourage mice from frequenting your wood stack, they will turn the rodents into your tick control allies.

Finally, when moving an established wood pile from one location to another, remember to follow the protocols for Before Going Outdoors and After Coming Back Indoors.

Tick Tubes are biodegradable tubes containing cotton balls that have been treated with permethrin – an insecticide that can also be used on your lawn perimeter (see action 1) and on clothing and gear.

In Tick Tubes, this permethrin-treated cotton attracts mice looking for nest-building material.

When the mouse takes the cotton back to its nest, the permethrin both kills any ticks that might be present (and reproducing) in the nest and mixes with the oils in the rodent’s fur. So, when the mouse goes back outside, it will kill any tick it encounters.

And this is all done without hurting the mouse.

Thermacell, a manufacturer of Tick Tubes, estimates that it takes:

• 6 tubes to treat 1/4 acre of mouse habitat
• 12 tubes to treat 1/2 acre of mouse habitat
• 24 tubes to treat 1 acre of mouse habitat

Keep in mind that these estimates are strictly for the areas of your property that are mouse habitats – not necessarily your entire plot. So, depending on the landscaping and terrain of your property, six tubes could go a long way in significantly reducing the tick population in your yard.

Place the tubes in spots where mice are mostly likely to live, hide, or hang around, such as:

• Wood piles
• Wooded areas
• Areas with a lot of leaf litter (e.g. flower beds, under bushes)
• Near stone walls or basement walls

You can purchase Tick Tubes at a number of online and physical retailers.

Regardless of whether you purchase or make these tubes, remember that while permethrin is safe for mice and dogs, it is harmful to cats and bees in its wet form, and toxic to aquatic life no matter if its wet or dry.

With the tick tubes, your neighborhood cats and bees are likely safe, since the permethrin will be dry on the cotton balls. But do not place these tubes in areas where they could come into contact with bodies of water.

First, it keeps birds away from the busier parts of your yard – the areas where your kids and your pets play.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as they are, birds do transport ticks. And a bird feeder or bird bath over grass (especially when it’s damp and shaded ground) represents a prime opportunity for a tick to drop off and thrive near your home.

Second, bird feeders attract mice that love the free meal provided by the feeder, itself, as well as the inevitable seed spill off that falls to the ground. And, as we have documented in many of these actions, anticipating and planning for a mouse’s behavior is crucial to controlling the tick population in your yard.

With these two things in mind, place bird feeders at the perimeter of your yard or over a mulch flower bed to lessen the potential of tick exposure for your family and your pets.

Depending on the landscaping on your property, you might have walkways or paths that cut through a wooded or brushy area. Be sure to clear tall grass or brush away from the edges of these walkways. And, when you use these walkways, try to stay in the middle of the path as much as possible to avoid brushing up against overgrown vegetation that could hold a questing tick.

You should clear any tall grass or brush at the edge of your lawn, wood’s edge, and around water sources. Ticks thrive in moist areas. Consider also creating tick barriers (see action 7) and doing perimeter treatments (see action 2) on your lawn’s borders.

Finally, before you go out to clear tall grass or brush, be sure to ask yourself all of the questions listed on our Before Going Outdoors page, and follow all of the protocols outlined on our After Coming Back Indoors page.

There are a couple of other ideas you might consider, as well. First, making an extra “barrier area”, so that your wood pile can sit atop the wood chips or gravel, could help with tick control.

Also, using wood chips or gravel in the beds that are planted right next to your house will help reduce the tick population in the overall yard.

Finally, building a fence around your property is an additional type of “tick barrier”, because it will keep out wild or stray animals that could carry ticks onto the property.

When deciding on a fence, remember that it is not just small animals that carry ticks. Deer are another primary carrier of blacklegged ticks (a.k.a. deer ticks). In fact, deer are considered a reproductive host for adult female ticks – meaning that the adult female tick will feed on the deer to gather the protein to lay thousands of eggs. So your fence should be tall enough that a deer will, at least, not be able to see what is on the other side.

According to University of Vermont’s Dr. Leonard Perry, even though a taller, slanted fence is recommended, a basic privacy fence can be effective because deer cannot see what is on the opposite side of it. And, not knowing if there is danger on the other side can be a strong deterrent – even if they smell something that is very attractive to them.

However, if you have a large deer population in your area, and feel like a more robust fence is a necessity, consider the other features of deer-proof fencing outlined by Dr. Perry, and by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

In general, all of your recreational areas should be away from any yard edges that have tall grass, shrubbery, or trees. However, sometimes, this is not always easy to do – for financial or logistical reasons. Moving a huge playground set is not exactly a fun weekend, right?

So, as you attempt to make your lawn tick-resistant, take a long look at your recreational spaces.

Do you have a swing set or other kind of play set for your children? Do you have a deck or patio? And, if you have those types of areas in your backyard, what type of vegetation is around them?

Does the swing set sit near the back or side edge of the property, where the neatly cut lawn becomes taller grass? Is the set partly shaded by a tree, making the ground around or near it damp and filling it with leaf litter?

Do you have shrubbery or other vegetation surrounding your deck or patio? Are there trees or tall grass near it?

If you answered any of the above questions with a “yes”, but feel like you cannot make or afford the necessary changes, do not give up! Consider adding a mulch or sand base under the existing play equipment as the blacklegged tick is less far less likely to survive in these conditions. Take a look at the other actions regarding perimeter treatment, removing leaf litter, tick tubes, and tick barriers for strategies that could help you create safer recreational spaces in your own backyard.

So, if you live in an area where deer have any kind of presence, chances are that there will be fairly large tick population, as well. And, besides being a reproductive host, a deer could also be viewed as a sort of “transporter host” for ticks, because they will likely carry the pests into your yard when they come in to graze on your garden in the middle of the night.

Of course, one way to discourage deer from coming into your yard is by building a tall fence (see action 7). But if that is not in your budget, consider landscaping using plants that do not attract deer, including:

As a note, when considering deer-resistant plants, research if the plants are on the plant invasive species for your state. For Indiana residents, check out Purdue University- College for Agriculture.

According to Rebecca Finneran and Sarah Rautio of Michigan State University in their article, “Smart Gardening to Deter Deer,” another plant strategy of deterring deer from entering certain areas of one’s property is creating a “fence” of Rhododendrons or yews. This resource includes further ideas for choosing plants, non-fence barriers, and deer repellents.