Cottage Q&A
QUESTIONWe have a pond on our property, and we're right beside a bog. There are lots of frogs and we have birdfeeders, but what else could we do to help reduce the mosquito population around our cottage? Is there any vegetation they dislike that I could plant?
ANSWER
An effective insecticide and repellent - pyrethrum - is produced from the flowers of the perennial daisy Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium (see "Cottage Q&A," Apr./May '02). However, the plant alone in its natural state wouldn't have any measurable effect on mosquitoes if you grew it around your cottage, and neither would any other vegetation our mosquito experts know of.
It sounds like you're in a low-lying area - prime mossie breeding habitat, says Doug Currie, curator of entomology at the Royal Ontario Museum. Your bog is contributing to the problem since mosquito larvae and pupae need very still water in order to develop. Make sure you're not giving them even more breeding sites than you already know about. Many species can breed in a tin-can-sized pocket of water, producing a new generation in less than two weeks. Take a tour around the cottage and eliminate all sources of standing water such as plant pots, pet dishes, clogged eaves, even driveway puddles. Keep any grass around the cottage short, and don't let thick shrubbery crowd up too close, adds mossie expert Gord Surgeoner, of the University of Guelph, since adult mosquitoes like to hang out in humid environments.
* Published in the July/August 2002 issue of Cottage Life
