Outsmarting garden pests

The challenges of growing a garden and shaping a perfect landscape can be great, even for those with a green thumb, and problems can be further compounded by a variety of natural pests.

Each year, homeowners on the East End are forced to contend with a host of creatures than can lay waste to an expensive and otherwise well-maintained landscape.

Bob Nardy, the owner of Nardy Pest Control in Southampton said his company has helped local residents combat insects and rodents for more than 50 years. Mr. Nardy said he gets called most often to eliminate populations of mosquitoes, ticks and fleas, but he said voles are the greatest concern for gardeners.

“It’s a type of meadow mouse,” he explained, describing the garden pest. He noted that voles feed above and below the ground, but they are different from moles. Moles burrow beneath the ground searching for earthworms and grubs, while voles feed on organic material. A mole can disturb the surface of a lawn and hurt any root structures in its path. Voles specifically target stems and root systems and can severely damage or kill pricey plants as a result, according to the pest expert.

“Some plants may even fall over because the root structure has been destroyed,” Mr. Nardy said.

Voles eat all sorts of plants, including ornamentals, rose bushes and flowers, as well as tomatoes and other vegetables. Because the rodents can travel beneath the snow cover, voles operate year-round and they must be dealt with using a maintenance system rather than one-time treatments.

“They’re very prevalent,” Mr. Nardy said, noting that he’s frequently called to manage vole problems.

Property owners can identify a vole problem by looking for subterranean plant damage and small, 1- to 1½-inch holes at the base of plants and trees. A person with a sharp eye can often spot the creatures skittering around the garden during the day, Mr. Nardy said, describing the animal as a “plump mouse with a short tail.”

John Vanderber, gardening expert, botanist and owner of Van Der Ber’s Garden Center in Aquebogue agreed that voles are a growing problem in local gardens.

“I’ve seen them cut off a mature holly,” he said. “It’s pretty bad.”

Mr. Vanderber said that exterminating voles is the only way to deal with the problem and there are a wide variety of “contraptions” on the market to kill them. He said people will go so far as to attach a hose to the tail pipe of their car and blow carbon monoxide into a vole hole, but a mousetrap baited with peanut butter or an apple is just as effective.

“There’s no repellent,” Mr. Nardy said, concurring that traps and poisoning via a “bait station” are the best ways to deal with voles.

Though they do not affect plants, mosquitoes, fleas and ticks can also be a garden problem and often a danger to humans and pets, Mr. Nardy reported. He said that deer ticks carry Lyme disease and they’ve become more common than American dog ticks, which are famous for carrying Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

According to Mr. Nardy, fleas have become less of an issue since the introduction of Frontline, an over-the-counter veterinary product that keeps the tiny bugs from surviving. The safest and most environmentally friendly way to deal with the various parasites is to spray the property with a botanical product rather than an insecticide, Mr. Nardy said. He uses a mixture of oils, including rosemary, peppermint and wintergreen to repel all three species and a citronella-based botanical called Skeeter Defeater to fight only mosquito populations.

According to the owner, Nardy Pest Control gets thousands of calls for insect problems, but ticks are the most common complaint. They reproduce once each spring and fall and can survive all year by staying warm in leaf litter. Additionally, ticks survive locally because of mild winters and the growing deer population on the South Fork.

“There’s a tremendous amount of deer,” Mr. Nardy said. “That’s their main host.”

While the deer population helps ticks survive and spread disease, they have also become one of the biggest garden pests on Long Island, both in size and the amount of damage they cause, according to Mr. Vanderber. “The biggest problem is deer right now,” he said. “They’ve been eating everything.”

Fences have been the staple deterrent against deer for most East End homeowners, but Mr. Vanderber said the large animals have started breaking down fences in recent years. As another line of defense, he has compiled his own list of deer-resistant plants that can beautify a landscape without fear that deer will simply devour weeks of work and thousands of dollars in vegetation.

“It works,” Mr. Vanderber said, noting that he found a broad list of plants and tested them on properties in North Haven, which is one of the South Fork’s most densely populated areas for deer. He reported that many supposedly well-known deer resistant plants were eaten in North Haven, but he kept track of the species that weren’t.

Some of the most successful deer-resistant plants, according to Mr. Vanderber, include bamboo, lavender, some spruce varietals, boxwood and osmanthus, otherwise known as false holly.

Mr. Vanderber said he’s unsure why deer will eat one plant and not another.

“It’s hard to draw conclusions,” he said. “There seems to be no rhyme or reason.”

He noted that he initially thought more fragrant or spiny plants may be unpleasant for deer, but that’s not always true. They will, for example, eat the spiky holly bush, but ignore the osmanthus, which is very similar.

Placement is also important, the gardener said, noting that planting trees near rock walls will keep bucks from rubbing their antlers and damaging them. “They like to mark the younger [trees],” Mr. Vanderber said.

During a recent interview, Sag Harbor resident Joe Donofrio said he spent $60,000 on his garden and landscaping and he was not about to let a pack of wayward deer destroy it. Instead of deer-resistant plants or fences, which he said can be difficult to match to code, he hired DeerTech. The five-year-old company has developed a safe and cutting edge technology that keeps deer from eating plants while still allowing them to roam the property, according Mr. Donofrio and Greg Lake, DeerTech’s president.

“We have a patented approach,” Mr. Lake said. Deer Tech uses a combination of ultrasonic devices and monthly spraying to create an “unpleasant dining experience” for deer, he explained. “We attack the deer on all senses,” he said.

Since the animals rely on their keen sense of hearing in avoiding predators, and DeerTech’s ultrasonic technology produces a sound that blocks that ability, the frequency makes them nervous to stay within hearing distance of the device.

Mr. Lake said the devices are placed around a property on small stands and emit a dim red light. The sound is inaudible to pets and most humans, though young girls are sometimes susceptible, he said. He noted that DeerTech’s service begins with a 60-day free trial and the frequency can be adjusted on the rare chance a child is able to hear it.

DeerTech’s monthly sprays consist of a proprietary mixture of “pretty harmless” ingredients such as hot sauce and rotten eggs,” Mr. Lake said, noting that deer can’t stand the taste. Still, deer “habituate” and get used to certain conditions, so DeerTech periodically changes the spray mixture to ensure this doesn’t occur.

Since opening, DeerTech has gained 250 clients on Long Island and the number is growing, according to Mr. Lake. He said the installation costs $3,500 and monthly charges begin at $99.

“Their landscape is the largest uninsured asset [homeowners] have,” he said, noting that a single deer eats seven pounds of vegetation per day and they rarely travel alone.

As for Mr. Donofrio, he said he is a satisfied customer and the cost of the service is well worth it.

“Whatever they’re doing, it’s working,” Mr. Donofrio said, noting he’s been deer free for two summers since hiring DeerTech. “This is our insurance policy.”