Natural wood degrades over time and has a limited lifespan. Attempt to maintain your fence and increase its lifespan through maintenance and upkeep. Pests are adversaries who will attack your wooden fence. They love to chew away and demolish a perfectly good fence, but following a few easy ideas will assist to safeguard your fence against unwanted insects.
5 Insects That Like Wood
All kinds of insects may scurry around and investigate your wood fence, but not all of them will try to chew through it. Here are a few particularly dangerous ones to be on the lookout for:
Termites – While termites may be very obvious on a wood surface, they can occasionally go unnoticed on a wood fence since homeowners focus on the foundation or walls of their homes when looking for symptoms of termites. Keep an eye out for termites by searching for tiny, winged insects or by seeing the discarded wings they leave behind. Mud tubes they produce are another identifying feature. From the dirt and their excrement, they create these tubes.
Carpenter Ants – They use wood as a building material to create enormous nests inside the fence, whereas termites use wood as a food source. Carpenter ants can be found in a variety of hues, such as brown, black, red, and yellow. They can even have wings and resemble termites in appearance. Wood shavings can be seen close to your fence’s base if there are carpenter ants ruining your fence.
Beetles – While not all beetles are destructive pests of wood, those can cause havoc on your fence. You should initially keep an eye out for the powder-post beetle, southern pine beetle, and pine bark beetle. These beetles like to eat wood, but some prefer to attack live trees.
Carpenter Bees – Large bees that are frequently mistaken for bumblebees are called carpenter bees. They are drawn to wood to create a habitat for their young. If you notice rounded holes appearing in your fence, a carpenter bee may be using it as a nursery for its young.
Horntail Wasps – Like many other insects, they seek a secure location to lay their eggs, and once the eggs hatch, the larvae enjoy feasting on the wood.
7 Strategies to Prevent Wood-Loving Pests
Let’s look at strategies to prevent your wood fence from becoming a chewed-up disaster now that you know what kinds of bugs will live inside of it.
Applying a Coat of Stain: Every wood fence must be coated and stained before anything else. This is a tried-and-true method to keep pests away and save your wood.
Getting Rid of Other Wood Sources: After invading wood in one part of your yard, insects can covertly go to another because they adore wood piles and tree stumps.
Getting Rid of Plant Growth on Your Fence: Pests adore plants. Insects can cross from the plant to your wood through the foliage that is next to your fence line. Eliminating vegetation from your fence blocks that direct path.
Using Top-Notch Wood: Rotted wood is an insect’s paradise. You will be successful if you build your fence out of high-quality wood and then color it.
Cleaning Your Fence of Debris: This is a helpful way to reduce the risk of mold, mildew, algae, and fungus growth. Spraying off accumulated dirt or mud on your fence.
Concrete Skirt: This can be built to operate as a solid barrier between the ground where bugs live and forage and the wood of your fence, even if it is a more expensive pest control method.
Leaving Space Between the Wood and Ground: It’s crucial to avoid installing your fencing pickets right next to the ground if a cement skirt is not an option. It all comes down to reducing the paths that insects can take.
Wood-damaging bugs can undoubtedly derail your desire for your wood fence to last for a very long time. Take safety measures to guard your fence. Watch for indications of pest infestations. If you find those nasty, crawly visitors, act right away.
source: https://cedarfencedirect.com/blog/2022/09/06/wood-damaging-insects-how-to-protect-your-wood-fence/
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