What is the best way to handle ants inside my house?

We recommend that you take the following approach:

1. Use strategically placed ant bait stations;
2. Use a wet, soapy cloth to clean up ants and their scent trail; and
3. Patrol the outside of the home for entrances the ants are using.

There are many effective bait products out there. Here’s a link to an example product that works well: https://www.terro.com/terro-liquid-ant-baits-2-pack. Follow the instructions closely for efficiency and safety for you, your pets, and the environment. The ants take the bait back to the colony. Sprays are not recommended. Sprays only kill the few ants you can see and leave pesticide in your home. Sprays are also not effective against ants outside of the house.

Further, those sprays have a pesticide that can be harmful to you and the water supply. Use a wet, soapy cloth when you wipe up ant trails. The soap erases the scent the ants left behind for others to follow. Also critical is using a caulk gun and patching any entrances the ants use. This link is to the University of California page on how to exclude ants from home: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/QT/antscard.html

What is the best way to handle ants outdoors?

Ants outside the home are not too serious, but they can definitely be a nuisance. Using ant bait stations is the key. Generally, the bait stations come several to a pack, and the directions will tell you where to best place them for the best results. With bait stations, an ant or two will take some home to the colony; then, you are handling the whole colony. Sprays only kill the few ants you see, can unintentionally cause harm to other insects we do need, and can possibly be harmful to us and our pets.

How can I handle ants in my lawn and patio area without harming my pets?

A possible reason the ants might be at the lawn line is that the soil is wet from recent rains, causing the ants to try to leave. Looking at the active ingredients in outside ant bait stations or sprays, it doesn’t look like they are safe for your pets. The stations are meant to be hidden, but the risk that your pets would find it is not a good risk to take. The sprays have a strong insecticide that would also be a high risk.

Unfortunately, organic options, such as herb oils and diatomaceous earth, may not be good, either. Organics rely on oils that burn or on bits of dust with silica that could irritate your pets’ noses or lungs. Excellent information on how to exclude ants from the home is available here: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/QT/antscard.html. Hopefully, knowing that the species of ant present outside isn’t likely to survive in the house and that the recent rain could make the ants run around, you will feel comfortable about not treating the ants. 

What can I do to remove red ants from my yard?

Red ants, either Red Imported or Harvester, have mounds we can see on the soil. It is important to know which type of ant colony you have. This link has photos to help identify ants: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7411.html.

Springtime is an ideal time to attract and kill an ant colony. Sometimes ants are particularly active when the soil is boggy and wet from excessive rain or irrigation, or when the soil is extremely dry in the summer. Check on irrigation and drainage. Mulch can be added to adjust soil moisture to reduce the presence of ants.

If an insecticide is needed, hydramethylnon is an active ingredient recommended by the University of California. It is a protein bait that will attract red ants during springtime. The product Amdro® Fire Ant Killer for Mounds (https://www.amdro.com/all-products/fire-ant-bait) uses hydramethylnon. Although the City’s IPM Advocate does not promote the use of certain products, this product has the ingredients listed so you can compare it with other available products.

Please follow all application instructions carefully for maximum effectiveness and to avoid having any of the ingredients wash away. If the insecticide you use doesn’t work, it may be necessary to find an exterminator (also called a pest control operator) experienced in ant control. Since many of the active ingredients professionals have access to are fairly hazardous, consider picking a pest control operator who uses and is certified in IPM approaches. For more information on choosing a pest control operator, visit the City’s website: https://lincolnstormwater.org/residents/gardening-pesticides/#operator

I have several crepe myrtle trees and bushes that become a sticky mess by the late summer and fall. How can I control this without killing all the good bugs?

Aphids can overwhelm a plant and leave a shiny, sticky mess all over the place. The good news is there are many ways to control aphids effectively while reducing harm to other beneficial insects. We recommend the following approach:

1. Check the plants for trails of ants. Ants love the sweet, sticky honeydew that aphids produce. Because ants bring in aphids, fight off aphid predators, and manage aphid health, it’s important to keep ants away when you’re trying to get rid of aphids. Control the ants with a sticky barrier, such as Tanglefoot, or ant bait stations.
2. Mulch at the trunk provides insects with a safe, covered walkway directly to your plants. If you have mulch (and we highly recommend mulch), pull it back from the trunk to leave six inches of clear ground all the way around.
3. If fertilizer is needed, stick to organics. Aphids want young, tender growth, which synthetic fertilizers push constantly, meaning that the aphids will never give you a break.
4. Check on any irrigation used. Plants can only “drink” from the canopy or drip edge. If the water is near the trunk, the tree can’t access it and gets stressed. Stress leads to more aphids.

For more helpful information, please see this link: https://ourwaterourworld.org/aphids

What time of year is the best time to put out the ant bait stations and place the Tanglefoot to control the aphids?

Ants are at high levels in the fall, and it is a good idea to place bait stations at that time. Place the Tanglefoot by the last week of January. As soon as temperatures get over 55 degrees, the ants and aphids will show up.

How do I manage invasive Bermudagrass?

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) is tough to remove from lawns because warm, moist soil is exactly what weeds love. The following tips may help you manage this wiry, invasive weed:

1. Prevent weeds by increasing the height for mowing your lawn to allow the grass to shade out ALL weeds. A lush, tall lawn will help outcompete weeds.
2. Check the edges of your lawn on a regular basis to look for and manually remove new Bermudagrass.
3. When Bermudagrass is elsewhere, such as a veggie or flower garden, review the photos in this Weed Gallery so you can recognize it amongst all the other plants: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/WEEDS/bermudagrass.html.
4. For larger areas, consider using the proven strategies of mulching or solarization, which primarily involve placing plastic (polyethylene) sheet mulching during the summer to control weed growth. These approaches require careful implementation and need to be maintained for several weeks to be effective. Detailed information on mulching and solarization is available at this link: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/pmg/pestnotes/pn7453.html.

Can I place Bermudagrass in my compost?

Please do not put Bermudagrass (or any weeds, for that matter) in your compost, as it will thrive and grow in the compost. Instead, use a green waste bin, if available.

Can I use herbicides to control Bermudagrass and other invasive weeds?

How can I get rid of cockroaches in my garage?

Cockroaches thrive where there is food, water, and protection. Garages often have all that and are difficult to seal off because of garage doors. Using a combination of control measures and bait stations (not sprays) will give the best long-term result. Certain bait stations work best and have the least danger to you, your pets, and the environment, but they must be placed carefully.

The ingredient recommended for bait stations is boric acid, and Harris’s tablets are available locally at Home Depot and Green Acres Nursery and Supply https://pfharris.com/products/harris-roach-tablets-kills-roaches. For more detailed information on control and bait station placement, this link is helpful: https://ourwaterourworld.org/cockroaches_2-14-21

I have a regular pest control service but still have problems with large roaches in my yard and garage. How can I safely get rid of the cockroaches when I have young children who play in the yard?

In addition to the information provided above, which is particularly helpful to ensure cockroaches don’t find their way inside your home, please see this link for more guidance from the University of California on keeping cockroaches out of your yard: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/QT/cockroachescard.html. Both the University of California and OWOW strongly recommend the use of baits, rather than sprays.

Dozens of grasshoppers are eating everything in my yard. What product can I use to kill them? “Sevin” and “Bug B Gon” don’t work.

Grasshoppers can make a serious mess of plants, especially when plants are young and tender with
spring growth. Grasshoppers love warm and wet conditions, which are ideal for breeding. Sevin
and Bug B Gone are pyrethroid pesticides. Any product that kills grasshoppers, including pyrethroid pesticides, is an extremely serious pesticide that will also kill almost all beneficial insects. Furthermore, these products need to be applied often, and there is not much evidence that they will work on adult grasshoppers.

Encouraging grasshopper predators by providing habitat is a possibility for grasshopper control. Birds, lizards, snakes, and raccoons do a great job. We would usually suggest that you find out what the grasshopper eggs look like and hunt them down, but they are laid under the soil surface where we can’t easily find them.

Until the young plants mature and toughen and the grasshoppers move on, the University of California suggests these options:

1. Use row covers to keep the grasshoppers out.
2. Decoy plants can be helpful. Keep an attractive, green border of tall grass or plants around the perimeter of the area you want to protect. The grasshoppers stop right there and don’t go any further. Keep this border watered and lush.
3. Manually catch and kill the grasshoppers.

As soon as your plants mature a bit, the damage should stop.

I’m a new resident living next to Lincoln’s open space. Last summer, I was shocked to discover three-inch-long grasshoppers destroying the leaves of my Meyer lemon tree and my basil. I never saw these at our previous home, where we had six Western bluebird nest boxes around the property. Our current nest box has nesting bluebirds, but those three-inch monsters are already eating my lemon leaves. I’m trying some neem oil, which seems to be a deterrent. Is there anything else I can do? It’s time to plant the veggie garden—but it is for me, not grasshoppers on steroids!

Grasshoppers can be an awful problem, and in the late spring, young grasshoppers are out in force. Our spring conditions were warm and wet, and the grasshoppers are having a population boom. The open space nearby is inadvertently ideal for them. The good news is that this should be a temporary problem. The young are born where there is food, and when that food is gone, they die out or move on. Often there are just a few of them, and although they can make a mess, catching and killing them is effective. However, there can be a lot of grasshoppers, and catching them all is not easy. The bird nesting boxes are excellent, and you have hit a home run with that!

More good news is that citrus is tough and loves to put out new leaves. Check on your irrigation and stick to organic fertilizers for a strong tree that can recover quickly when the grasshoppers move away.

For your vegetable garden, exclusion using netting and row covers is going to be the best approach. As summer comes along, the grasshopper population should plummet, but protecting your young tender garden now is critical. As a plus, exclusion will help against other problems, as well.

Unfortunately, there are few pesticides that work on grasshoppers, and the ones listed to kill them will create very tough conditions for your garden. These pesticides kill almost all beneficial insects and invertebrates, including bees and earthworms, and are a significant hazard to water quality and aquatic organisms. Furthermore, a pesticide label may state that the product kills grasshoppers, but the product doesn’t work on the adult form of the insect. It is recommended that you check the labels of specific neem oil products to see if they help with grasshopper control; however, please keep in mind that neem oil is not generally considered to be an integrated pest management option.

Please see this link for more guidance from the University of California about grasshopper management: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74103.html

What are these insects that I see running up and down my tree?

The insects (pictured here) are the larval form of the lady beetle! The younger form of these insects eats more than the parents do. They look so different from the cute little red and black adults that it can sometimes be hard to believe that they are good guys, but these are beneficial insects.

When we purchased our home about 3 years ago, there were small lizards everywhere. Last year, they disappeared. How can we encourage the lizards to return? They are great gardening companions. Are our neighbors using too many pesticides? Is that what drove the lizards away?

Although we don’t have just one answer, we do have several possible answers. If any of these seem like a possible reason, you may be able to make the change that brings these lovely lizards back. If neighbors are using pesticides, the lizards may have left or starved because they don’t have any insects to eat.

Further, there are some commonly used pesticides that can hurt lizards. Imidacloprid and pyrethroids are a problem for the water supply and lizards. Habitat destruction is something to consider. Nearby construction or disturbance of their winter sites of leaves, rocks, or wood piles can be a cause. The last possibility is lizard predator populations may have risen. These include cats, dogs, hawks, and snakes.

In April, my car sustained $4,000 worth of damage due to mice that got into the engine compartment, air intake, air filters, and hoses. I need to park my car outside, so I can’t solve the problem by parking in a garage. What advice do you have to prevent future mice damage to my car?

Thank you for reaching out to us about the damage your car had due to mice. They are attracted to the wires, insulation, warmth, and privacy of car engine compartments, and it is an awful problem to have. Having your car outside during the hot months can help, as the car is too hot to be comfortable. Springtime is when this is the biggest problem. Several strategies for stopping rodents within residences will not work for a car parked on the street:

1. Exclusion, such as wire mesh and other barriers, cannot easily be used with cars.
2. In residential areas, it is challenging to remove nearby brush piles, pet food, and water supplies that attract rodents.
3. Rodenticides are not recommended, as the dead rodent may have hidden in the engine compartment, and the smell will not be

Instead, the following options are available:

1. Trapping: Traps are often placed near the front wheel wells, where rodents typically enter the This website has “Tips for Using Traps”: https://ourwaterourworld.org/rats-and-mice.
2. Deterrents: There is some evidence that scents derived from peppermint and cloves, either in spray or pellet form, help when used near car entrances or in the
3. Parking Location: If possible, do not park close to trees or plant material that might touch the Rodents hide in there and have a short walk to your car. Park where it is bright, as they prefer dark places.

I have moss growing on the lawn and rose bed and around the base of trees. The level of invasion has increased substantially compared to last year. I’d like to use an environmentally friendly approach to ridding the moss since I’m about 400 yards uphill from a protected ravine. Do you recommend iron?

The presence of moss is often a sign of two things: shade and wet soil that doesn’t dry out between watering. As trees grow, they progressively create more shade, encouraging the moss. The soil gets a bit compacted, as well, and ideal growing conditions for moss are the result. Soil that hasn’t had a chance to dry out will become waterlogged and soggy. The lawn will start to become sparse, and moss takes over.

To help reduce the presence of moss, moisture control is key. Check on your irrigation wherever you are seeing moss. Allow soil to dry out to an inch beneath the surface before watering again to hopefully get the moss under control. Adding mulch around the roses can also help to moderate soil moisture.

Pesticide products with iron sulfate (or “liquid iron”) as an active ingredient are known to be hazardous and toxic to fish, so we recommend controlling the moss through moisture management or manual removal. Choosing a safer method is especially important since you live near a ravine, and any chemicals used on your lawn will travel downhill with storm runoff or irrigation to the ravine.