removing midges from my garden

fellakel

Hi all,

hope someone can help here....
I have a large(ish) garden - 250sqm. Mainly lawn with conifers around the edges. For some reason their are a lot of midges esp around the lawn area. I have just cut the grass hoping they would go away but no joy!!!

Looking on the internet, I have machines availbale for £300 to get rid of them. - not ideal!!

is there a cheap solution to this please???

thanks

Mortal

does your lawn have moss or thatch in it? You could try scarifying it to get some air into the grass and this can apparently help stop them resting in your lawn. Certain types of midge lay their eggs in the buds on conifers.

You could burn citronella while you're out on the lawn to try to keep them away

Ephemera

Vacuum them up?

Suzy_M

Midges prefer damp shady conditions and don't like strong sunlight so your conifers are probably harbouring them during the brighter part of the day. Woud you want to lose a few of your conifers to reduce the hiding places?

JupObs

fellakel wrote: »

is there a cheap solution to this please???

Grow VFTs ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A2982404

ixwood

There's loads of plants that are supposed to deter mosquitoes. Mostly herbs and smelly stuff. From memory, catnip, rosemary, lavender, thyme, lemon grass and eucalyptus. Google it and you'll find more.

Although having said that, a lot of the smelly plants need brushing to smell and someone on a forum post I found said that they'd found loads of mozzies hiding in their catnip.

I'm going to try growing them and sees what happens. My plan is to surround the pond with a herb garden.

I don't know what sort of midges you're talking about, but I think most of them need water to breed. Is there any around that could be attracting them?

ixwood

Mozzies are supposed to be scared of the sounds of Dragonflys (which eat them and other flying insects). I was trying to find an mp3 of the sound to try in my garden, but google let me down. Anybody know where you can get a Dragonfly recording?

scbk

Bats eat midges, making some bat boxes might help attract them

cheerfulness4

Interesting about the conifer comments. We had a terrible midge problem in the garden for years but cut down 6 mature conifers last year (casting too much shade on veggy garden) and the midge problem virtually disappeared.

jaxx46

I read in a mag last week that if u use water that has had garlic soaking in it it will keep the midges away. Haven't tried it yet but would be interested to know if any1 else has.