The fact that you can also bite in the garden is already clear from ontekenradar.nl reports. But it’s not yet clear exactly where you’re at risk.
That is why Wageningen University organized a tick count at thirty selected addresses spread across the Netherlands. By ironing a white cloth over some spots, the number of ticks was checked. Ticks were found in 70 percent of gardens with an average of 16 ticks per 100 square meters.
There are four to ten times as many ticks as the forest, but as gardens are used more intensively, the risk of being bitten there increases. Freshly cut grass was previously thought to be virtually free of ticks.
Ticks are eventually caught on all types of vegetation. Insects are also found in grass, for example, between tiles and on borders.
More than a quarter of ticks were found in short grass. Ticks are caught even in lawns maintained daily with a robotic lawnmower. As it now seems likely that you can get a tick bite anywhere in the garden, researcher and biologist Arnold Van Vliet warns: “The slogan we’ve used for years during Tick Week, ‘Check for a tick after a visit. To the green.’, therefore certainly applies to the garden as well.
According to the RIVM and the University of Wageningen, an average of 1.5 million bites per year occur in 500,000 orchards. Ticks carry one in five cases of Lyme disease, a disease that can present with joint, skin, nerve and heart complaints.
