How 2 protect flowering shrubs & plants with re: insecticide

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Wistee NATHALIE, VA Apr 16, 2012

Hello Gardener!

I hope you can help me with this. I have a house (and yard) within many acres of woodland in South Central VA (zone 7b) and I want to help protect my family from ticks and Lyme disease by creating a tickless (ha yeah right) or at least 'tick-less' zone around the yard. The gentleman at the VA Cooperative Extension said " this year is going to be a bumper crop of deer ticks" So I've devised a plan to deal with this by the following methods:
Landscaping -
1. choosing aromatic herbs, flowers and shrubs that deer really don't like, thus reducing the number of deer who come into the yard
2. creating a 3 ft mulched border that contains those plants (in #1) around the woodland border as well as the front yard that borders the driveway

As much as I hate it, spraying insecticide - around the border of the woods and on the beds at the woodland border, and front border. I have some "Demand CS" on the way. [non-sales/informational site: http://www.syngenta.com/global/corporate/en/products-and-innovation/product-brands/lawn-and-garden/turf-and-landscape/Pages/demand.aspx] Unfortunately, it not only kills ticks but it would kill any bee (and we LOVE bees!) who lands on our treated flowering shrubs and flowers! This we do not want, so the question is how to protect the flowering plants when I do spray (every 90 days)?

Would the devices gardeners often use to protect sensitive plants during a 'cold snap' work or do I need to just get some plastic sheeting (non permeable)? This is a bit depressing, but not as depressing as having Lyme disease or killing our beloved bees!

Thanks in advance~

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