Palmetto Bugs Taking Over Your Property? Get Rid Of The Organic Mulch Volcanoes Around Your Trees
Posted on: 16 May 2016
If you find palmetto bugs in your home or crawling around your property, get rid of the organic mulch volcanoes around your trees. Palmetto bugs, or the American cockroach, can be a nuisance for many homeowners living in the south. The large bugs can come onto your property and hide in places with piles of trash, wood, and even mulch. These places provide cover for the insects so that they can breed and feed. Your organic mulch volcanoes make perfect homes for the pests. Here's why palmetto bugs live in the mulch around your trees and what you can do to get rid of them.
Why Do Your Mulch Volcanoes Attract Palmetto Bugs?
Like other types of mulch, organic mulch is designed to hold onto moisture and protect the soil from the sun's heat, ice and snow. But mulch volcanoes can soak up too much water and become ideal places for insects to thrive.
Organic materials in mulch can also decay or rot over time, which can become a huge problem if you don't remove and replace the decaying mulch with fresh material every one to four years. Palmetto bugs can use the moist material to lay eggs or hide from predators. The insects also use the organic matter in the mulch as a food source.
The palmetto bugs can travel to your home when the outdoor conditions become unfavorable, like when it is too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. You might find them around other places of the home that have decaying piles of mulch. The best way to cut down your palmetto bug problem is to get rid of your mulch volcanoes.
How Can You Protect Your Trees Without Using Too Much Mulch?
Use a shovel and trash bags to remove and discard the old mulch. After you complete the previous steps, clean the soil around the tree with a rake and gardening hoe before laying the new material. Palmetto bugs may dig below the soil to hide until you place the new mulch.
Sources recommend that you only have a 2- to 4-inch deep layer of mulch around each tree. These depths are generally enough to keep the trees' root systems fed with water and protected from the elements. To avoid softening the trees' barks with too much moisture, leave a small amount of space between the bases and mulch layers.
Once you complete the steps above, the palmetto bugs should go away. If you still have problems after a week or so, contact a tree service contractor for help.
For more information, contact a professional in your area or visit a website like http://treesculptors.com.
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