That’s an actual thing. Not just a me thing.

They specifically are attracted to places where strong odors are present.

Stinky shoe? Don’t mind if I do!

Seriously though, the carbon dioxide you exhale puts lift in their wings. It’s their caffeine in their coffee so to speak; it wakes them up and lets them know that there’s a snack nearby.

This would have been great information to look up and know ahead of my evening earlier in the week. Still, I’ve been looking forward to writing this post as the first in an awesome list planned for my gardening and landscaping section. I don’t know about you but these two activities have me constantly thinking about the flow of colors, bloom time, what kind of creatures will be visiting throughout the seasons and so on. Of course this would be in an alternative artistic route for me.

It does help that I enjoy unearthing the ground and figuring out new designs with what I’ve found, too.

That night’s project was all about removing a load of purple irises. Honestly, I couldn’t count how many had populated there. I mean, I could, but not at the rate I was going.

Now, let me explain this garden. It’s relatively small and circles our mailbox. In the center and behind the mailbox itself is a purple butterfly bush. Around the butterfly bush on the right side are wild violets, rose campions, stonecrop, all of which repel mosquitoes. On the left is the obscene amount of purple irises. It is quite literally a carpet of them that are so thick that I’m surprised that they haven’t choked themselves out.

Earlier in the summer we had a bad storm that broke many of the butterfly bushes branches which made it imperative to remove them. Initially, I thought about cutting it further back and reshaping it as a smaller bush to give the plant a chance. Instead, I left most of it alone. Our summer had been very dry so I didn’t want to burn out the bush. What I didn’t know until recently is that butterfly bushes attract mosquitoes. Keeping it large pretty much was like calling out to the little buggers to say that this was an oasis.

As it turns out, the mailbox garden really was one. Since it really wasn’t being groomed to make sure that air could flow around the branches and the matting of the irises trapped stagnant water, I really did have an issue on my hands. Good thing I decided to really see this through or we would be in some serious mosquito cloud trouble.

Well, at least, I was. It was “bite at first pause”. The second I made it down there, they were already placing their bets as to where they’d get me and how many times.

However, my plan was in motion. The first scoop was like shoveling into a wall. Their roots were matted and deep. I couldn’t believe it! I did find that digging around the area helped. Also, believe it or not, levering it helped as well. I found myself digging under the root, then stepping on the handle of the shovel to pull up more of the flower carpet. All of a sudden I had movement. The first clump came free, then the next. Within the hour I had filled my wagon, and lined the driveway with basketball sized clumps of irises!

Finally, about an hour and a half later, the left side of the garden was completely cleaned out. Success helped me ignore the mosquitoes despite how sweat rained from my face and I’m sure I called them all too me. No sooner had I slowed down did I realize the itch. There were points all over my face, neck, arms and ankles. Oh my goodness, my poor ankles!

For the record, I didn’t think to put bug spray on nor did I even consider how wrong I could be about how buggy it would be outside, so all of the itch is totally my fault.

Regardless, the task is finished which I’m still in awe of. Rest assured that the irises do have another home in the woods where they can spread and live a happy life going forward. As for the mosquitoes? Their days in my front yard are numbered.