Ticks need places to hide when it’s hot and dry outside. Remove their hiding places by: keeping grass short, clearing leaf litter and brush, creating a buffer between wooded or open-space areas and your lawn, and removing conditions that attract the rodents and wildlife that carry ticks onto your property.
If you live anywhere near the open spaces or foothills, you know that ticks come with the territory. But that doesn’t mean you have to be resigned to their constant presence on your own property.
The Rocky Mountain wood tick is the most common species in the Front Range region, and it's active from early spring through midsummer. There is a lot you can do to make your yard less inviting to ticks during this stretch of time when they are active.
Start with regular lawn maintenance. Mow frequently and keep grass short. Ticks wait for hosts in tall grass and vegetation at the edges of paths and property lines. Short grass dries out faster in Colorado's low humidity and gives ticks fewer places to hide. This single step reduces tick encounters more than almost anything else.
After doing that, clear leaf litter and brush piles, as well as any other dead vegetation. These materials hold moisture and create the cool, sheltered conditions ticks need to survive. In Colorado's dry climate, ticks are already much more at risk of drying out in the sun than they are in the Midwest or East Coast. Removing their moisture refuges makes your yard even less survivable for them.
You may also want to create a barrier between wild areas and your lawn. A 3-foot strip of gravel, wood chips, or dry mulch between your maintained yard and any adjacent open space or tree line will be very hard for ticks to cross. It’s simple to set up and takes basically zero maintenance once done.
It’s also helpful to reduce the attractiveness of your yard to wildlife that tend to carry ticks. Deer, rabbits, and rodents are the main vehicles that bring ticks into residential yards. Fencing gardens, securing trash, removing bird feeders that attract ground-foraging animals, and sealing entry points under decks and sheds all reduce the number of tick hosts passing through your property.
If you are tired of dealing with ticks on your West Denver property, Mosquito Squad of West Denver can help. A technician can come to your property and find out where ticks hide during the day. Then they can treat those areas, and in doing so, reduce populations by up to 90% for 21 days at a time.
