SMACK!

It's rainy season, and you know what that means: green lawns, vigorous plants and flowers, and armies of mosquitoes outside your door. Man, I hate mosquitoes. But they love me. I can ignite myself in a blaze of citronella oil and they'd still attack.

Here in Florida, we actually "celebrate" Mosquito Control Awareness Week. Last week, Hillsborough County started the blitz to educate local residents about methods to prevent these buggers from overtaking their yards. I took note of an e-mail I received from Hillsborough titled Top 10 Mosquito Prevention Tips. I pared it down to a few that were somewhat related to the industries I cover.

• If you have bromeliad plants in your yard, regularly rinse them out with a garden hose. Mosquito larvae need water to grow and evolve, and bromeliads are an excellent host. The average bromeliad can be expected to produce around a hundred mosquitoes per year. That may not seem like much, but if you have ten or twenty plants in your yard, that’s several thousand mosquitoes! [Yikes, I have at least 50 bromeliads growing in my yard--see picture above. Potential mosquito breeding ground or not, I have no intention of getting rid of these. I'll rinse 'em out thank you very much.]
  


• Take special precautions in high mosquito areas. Use head nets, long sleeves and long pants if you venture into areas with high mosquito populations, such as salt marshes. Also use insect repellent containing DEET on any exposed skin. Please read the label before using the product and avoid direct application to the face. [There aren't too many places I can think of that aren't high mosquito areas during this time of year]
  


• Watch out for puddles in your yard. Irrigate lawns and gardens carefully to prevent water from standing for several days. [Good advice no matter what]

If interested in more mosquito prevention tips, go to www.hillsboroughcounty.org.

When I'm out in the yard for any length of time after dusk, I'm armed with a can of OFF! I'm sure you can find a can or two thousand if you look long enough in a landscape professional's equipment truck and/or somewhere in close proximity to a nursery's shadehouse.

Here's a mosquito-prevention method I recently tried for the first time. Sometimes I just don't feel like spraying myself down with a DEET-laced product--especially if I'm not going to be bathing anytime soon after. In those cases, I have tried rubbing my arms and legs with a fresh dryer sheet and then stuffing it in one of my pockets. I heard somewhere that the scent throws the blood suckers off. Well I'll be ... it's worked for me ... so far. It might be only a matter of time before the mosquitoes are on to it and then I counter with a full body suit of dryer sheets. Now that would be a sight--scary.