Ticks are present everywhere in the eastern townships. They become active when temperature reaches the freezing point and stay still at about and over 25° Celsius. A humid, shady and fresh environment is their preferred spot. Do not take for granted that they are only in those areas though, I found one in the grass at the step of my patio last spring.

Keeping your living areas tick free is the best strategy.

Regular maintenance:

  • Sprinkle the areas at risks with a garlic solution. The best is to proceed at the beginning of the spring, when you are having visitors with young children, animals or when you do landscaping. There is no insecticide better than the garlic solution. Here is the recipe.
  • Avoid piles of leaves or other plant residues.

Annual maintenance and landscaping

  • Put up a barrier on the ground composed of plants that keep ticks away (refer to bullet 2), cedar mulch or gravel, at least 90cm wide to separate your living area from a risk area.
  • Plant geranium, rosemary, mint or mammoth chrysanthemum.
  • Balsam fir thorn is said to kill blacklegged ticks during hibernation. This is what we learn from this new study by a Nova Scotian researcher cited in the reference*. Ticks have been hibernated in balsam fir thorns as well as essential oils made from balsam fir and the preliminary results seem very conclusive. The researcher also made ticks hibernate in various forest residues and balsam fir and the oils extracted from it effectively killed the majority of ticks in the experiment compared to other hibernation environments.

Recipe: 100g of peeled garlic cloves and 1L of water. Crush the garlic cloves and macerate them for 24 hours. Then, bring the solution to boil and keep gentle boiling for 20 minutes. Let the liquid cool completely. Filter the remaining cloves. Spray on problematic areas. The solution can only be kept for 24 hours in a cool place. The sprayed area must be sprayed again after a few days or rain.