Cedar Oil for Lawn Treatment

We had been held hostage in our house and away from the yard this whole summer.  The mosquitoes were horrendous.  They were relentless.  And, no matter what Sean did, they left painful quarter-sized welts all over his body.  Apparently, these were African tiger mosquitoes, or something like that.  We tried to make mosquito traps using carbon dioxide to lure them in, but those failed to catch much of anything.  We then bought two insect lamps with mosquito-attracting pheromones, and those seem to work well.  But, they have a limit to how affective they are.

It was killer, because we couldn't just lay in the yard on a blanket with the baby.  Oh, she would have loved it.  Sean and I both grew up in the middle of nowhere and made the forest our home. I remember the countless days where I would curl up in our yard on a blanket while dozing off and watching the clouds float by.  We have a bigger yard and more green space that we would have ever thought living in this city.  But, because we were not willing to spray chemicals on the lawn, we couldn't use it.  My mom mentioned to me that everyone in Ohio uses Chemlawn.  I didn't realize until just a few weeks ago that our lawn growing up was treated with chemicals.  Of course, it makes sense now.  There were never any bugs.  Just fireflies. 

During our visit to Texas, we saw a sign for Cedarcide, an organic lawn treatment. Sean looked it up, and it was for sure not just another chemical treatment masquerading as something natural. It was a cedar oil mixture.

When I saw a brown recluse near the side of the house, I knew that we needed to do something.  Baby girl could have so easily come into contact with it while romping around the yard.  I was ready to just have them come spray the lawn.  For most people, that's okay.  We played in sprayed yards growing up, and we ended up fine.  Lots of people do.  But, for us crazy people who spend a good deal of time, money, and energy trying so hard to minimize the chemicals in their lives, this seemed like a huge deal.  It was a question.  Do you want chemicals or do you not want chemicals?  It was maddening. Of course we don't want chemicals.  We wanted to use the yard!

Sean reminded me about Cedarcide, and after milling over the price, we eventually made the leap.  Someone mentioned that having a company come out to spray the yard would be much more expensive.  It was about $80 for one small bottle.  I had been worried we had just paid $80 for two small treatments and that we would need a new bottle before we got rid of the bugs, but that was not the case.  It contains eight treatments, but the instructions say to use 8 oz for the first treatment.   My mom sprayed the yard and commented that she had enough in the bottle to soak the yard three times.

I was really happy with it.  We had a bonfire for her birthday and there weren't any bugs.