If you think you’ve had to dodge the flight of an unusually high amount of wasps around your yard this summer you’re probably not mistaken. Certain parts of your property and landscape may actually be attracting these winged insects. Here are three things that attract wasps to your yard.
Unpainted Wood Surfaces
Lots of home and landscape designs feature unpainted wood surfaces. While wood elements around your property, like decks, pergolas, swings, window boxes, and planters may provide entertainment and visual appeal, wasps see them for a sole purpose: as building material for a home. The insects chew on unpainted wood in order to harvest pulp to build nests.
What to do?
You can easily thwart their efforts by painting or staining your wood surfaces.
Fruit Trees
If you’ve moved to a property that has a fruit tree or you’ve planted a mature fruit tree and it’s beginning to yield its juicy goodness, you may have to share your sweet bounty with wasps. Entomologists say wasps, and other stinging insects, have a sweet tooth for sugary human foods. So you aren’t the only one eyeing the ripe fruit hanging from your branches.
What to do?
Since you’re probably not going to remove your fruit tree, be sure to promptly pick up fallen fruit to keep it from rotting in your yard and attracting wasps. Dispose of rotten pieces in lidded trash cans or compost bins.
Brightly-Colored Flowers
Sorry folks, but one of the few downsides to having a landscape populated with colorful flowers is that wasps find your blossoms equally as attractive as you do. Any plant in your garden with bright floral patterns will get their attention. And more bad news: Wasps are drawn to clothes with bright floral patterns, too.
What to do?
To help make yourself less attractive to wasps avoid wearing clothes with bright floral patterns while outside. When it comes to your garden, we doubt that you’ll want to get rid of your colorful flowers. If you’ve got potted flowers consider relocating them to portions of your yard that are away from seating areas.
