You’re going to have ticks in the native area too, especially the marginal zones. They love those. Ticks are native, unfortunately. Remediating your land for native insects’ benefit will actually be better for ticks than having an acre of 2" turf grass, but that’s just because short lawns are totally ecologically dead.
When I was more uninformed I was more of a purist. The more I’ve done on my own property, and the more I’ve consulted with experts, the more I’ve learned that it’s actually a balance between human needs and ecology. Now I’m sort of in the “if planting turf grass by your house is what you need to be on board with the rest of it, fine.”
We can’t promise people ticks will go away, more like teach people the critical value of native insects. Keep tall grass away from your house, sure, but think about walkways instead of acres of lawn for the rest of it. People plant lawns and call Mosquito Joe to fog it all so “their children can play” but consider your children living in a world with no bugs at all. That’s the trade off. IMO it’s a lot more scary than ticks, and I fucking hate ticks.
I’m required to keep a 100 ft perimeter of defensible space around my house, so I do need to clear quite a bit. I try to leave as much otherwise, recently (5 ish years) I had considerable sprouting of volunteer oaks. Probably 15 or so across my property, not sure if that’s indicative of the land being healthier but we get a decent amount of wild mushrooms as well.
Oak are great. A lot of the understory in oak/hickory forest is now maple and tulip poplar due to shifting climate and possibly deer pressure. It’s called mesophication.
My property is also oak/hickory complex and I can say anecdotally that the native understory has a lot of tulip poplar.
One of my relatives’ primary concerns isn’t ticks, it’s mice getting into the house. Is that a valid concern? Personally I think just keeping a couple of indoor cats would offset encroaching rodents.
In my experience if you have access points for mice they will get in whether you have a suburban turf grass lawn or not, and a cat can’t get them if they are in the walls or crawlspace. So the best bet is to seal up any holes and keep all vegetation, native or not, at least a couple of feet away from the house.
it kinda does both, there are more mice but the more naturalized habitat gives them more places to hide that isnt your house, especially in the spring/summer fall, but winter too. I dont know, others get mice all the time anyway, we occasionally do, i dont know if it’s an improvement or not. I do know that a well sealed house in the woods with totally native habitat for acres (not mine sadly, lol) has far fewer pests than in any suburb house so i think there’s merit.
One of my cats would probably be scared of the mice, and the other would probably make friends with the mice. They are both disappointments to their Great Ancestors
You’re going to have ticks in the native area too, especially the marginal zones. They love those. Ticks are native, unfortunately. Remediating your land for native insects’ benefit will actually be better for ticks than having an acre of 2" turf grass, but that’s just because short lawns are totally ecologically dead.
When I was more uninformed I was more of a purist. The more I’ve done on my own property, and the more I’ve consulted with experts, the more I’ve learned that it’s actually a balance between human needs and ecology. Now I’m sort of in the “if planting turf grass by your house is what you need to be on board with the rest of it, fine.”
We can’t promise people ticks will go away, more like teach people the critical value of native insects. Keep tall grass away from your house, sure, but think about walkways instead of acres of lawn for the rest of it. People plant lawns and call Mosquito Joe to fog it all so “their children can play” but consider your children living in a world with no bugs at all. That’s the trade off. IMO it’s a lot more scary than ticks, and I fucking hate ticks.
I’m required to keep a 100 ft perimeter of defensible space around my house, so I do need to clear quite a bit. I try to leave as much otherwise, recently (5 ish years) I had considerable sprouting of volunteer oaks. Probably 15 or so across my property, not sure if that’s indicative of the land being healthier but we get a decent amount of wild mushrooms as well.
Oak are great. A lot of the understory in oak/hickory forest is now maple and tulip poplar due to shifting climate and possibly deer pressure. It’s called mesophication.
My property is also oak/hickory complex and I can say anecdotally that the native understory has a lot of tulip poplar.
One of my relatives’ primary concerns isn’t ticks, it’s mice getting into the house. Is that a valid concern? Personally I think just keeping a couple of indoor cats would offset encroaching rodents.
Depends on that cat.
In my experience if you have access points for mice they will get in whether you have a suburban turf grass lawn or not, and a cat can’t get them if they are in the walls or crawlspace. So the best bet is to seal up any holes and keep all vegetation, native or not, at least a couple of feet away from the house.
it kinda does both, there are more mice but the more naturalized habitat gives them more places to hide that isnt your house, especially in the spring/summer fall, but winter too. I dont know, others get mice all the time anyway, we occasionally do, i dont know if it’s an improvement or not. I do know that a well sealed house in the woods with totally native habitat for acres (not mine sadly, lol) has far fewer pests than in any suburb house so i think there’s merit.
I had a cat once that let a mouse come up to it, touch noses, then run away.
It really REALLY depends on the cat.
One of my cats would probably be scared of the mice, and the other would probably make friends with the mice. They are both disappointments to their Great Ancestors