What is a vole?

Voles look a bit like mice, ranging in size between 3 and 7 inches. They are rodents whose primary target is your vegetables and plants. While voles eat all kinds of garden vegetables and plants, they aren’t very good climbers and they don’t often try to get inside homes. Their populations increase and decrease over the course of years, but they are always more or less present. The key to the vole eradication is control.

How to get rid of Voles.

Since voles are mostly outdoor pests and since Ventura County residents live in their backyards and gardens, voles present a constant problem to both farmers and home gardeners alike.

Burrowing a system of trails underground, voles will do damage year round and can destroy a garden in a matter of weeks. Their burrows are shallow and have many openings and the result is home remedies and common chemicals are not all that effective. That’s why KastleKare’s common sense approach to eradication of this pest provides management and control of the landscape so the voles won’t return.

In Ventura County, mice and rodents are a part of life, like the beautiful sunsets and the pristine beaches.

Food sources attract mice and while you have to do your part to seal food containers and avoid tempting their entry, once they arrive, getting rid of them takes more than just sealing holes or putting out mouse traps.

Why do Mice Come into Homes?

Mice can be attracted to a home after it rains as a place to find water and even food sources. Once in, their small size allows them unfettered access to nearly anywhere in your home they want to be. They are amazing climbers and while they don’t have great vision, their other senses, especially hearing, are finely honed and they use those senses to check for threats or predators.

Mice carry diseases and parasites with them and present a special challenge to your pest control needs. It’s not just about building a better mousetrap; it’s about integrated pest control management. KastleKare uses common sense pest control to get rid of mice. Extermination isn’t always enough. Once the mice are gone, KastleKare will work to make sure they don’t return and keep your mouse problem under control.

KastleKare will see to it that the mice are exterminated inside while protecting all the people and pets in your home with environmentally safe methods and that entry points and mouse-temptations are eliminated.

At KastleKare, we’ll see to it that mice don’t keep you up at night and that the only scurrying of little feet you here are the kids.

Kastle Kare specializes in keeping your landscape beautiful, healthy and pest-free.  We provide your home, business, school, or organization with the very best in residential and commercial pest control, plant disease control and prevention, lawn weed control, bees and wasps control, lawn aeration, gopher and squirrel control and more.

Our company offers services on a one-time basis to consult and treat a problem, or on a regular basis to help prevent problems from coming back.

Kastle Kare is based in Camarillo, California in Ventura County.  Most of our clients are within 50 miles of so of our base.  We are rare because of the breadth of services we provide.  We have invested heavily into an extensive fleet of equipment that allows us to perform our services expertly and efficiently.

Kastle Kare’s Gopher Man provides expert Gopher Pest Control

Kastle Kare has a specialized division just for gopher control and eradication, the GopherMan. Because gophers are a particularly difficult Pest Control topic, we have a dedicated staff and equipment to controlling them. Because property owners can usually only treat their own properties, gophers may return after treatment. This is because they may still be around in adjacent properties. The GopherMan will also keep this in control by providing regular maintenance visits to your property to keep them from creating more damage. Read more about gopher control here.

Plant Disease

Fungi are the most common type of plant disease

Fungi: these are the most common type of plant disease.  Fungi cause many different symptoms such as leaf spots, wilts, curled leaves, dieback, enlargements or galls, stunted plants and dead plants.  Fungal spores are spread by wind, water, soil movement, machinery, insects and anything else they come in contact with, including people.

Fungus Conditions Include:

• Powdery Mildew
• Black Spot
• Downy Mildew
• Blights
• Mold
• Mushrooms

Kastle Kare is Ventura County, Santa Barbara County and Los Angeles County experts at diagnosing and PROPERLY treating fungus and other plant diseases on your trees, shrubs, ornamentals, ground covers and lawn.

A correct diagnosis is important to ensure the fungi disappears and the plants are not harmed by the incorrect treatments.

All About Kastle Kare’s  plant disease services, including fungus

Snails and Slugs Chew Your Plants

Snails and slugs feed on living plants and on decaying plant matter.  They usually chew irregular holds with smooth edges in leaves and flowers.

Snails and slugs can wreak havoc on your beautiful plants in your landscape and gardens.

Snail and Slug Management

To protect your landscape and gardens from snails and slugs the problem must be managed properly.   Kastle Kare’s pest control services does the dirty work for you.  Our goal is to get your landscape and garden back to its optimum beauty and health.  We also provide maintenance treatment programs to keep it that way.

Kastle Kare’s pest control services is Ventura County’s has your solution to snail and slug pest control

There is a new pest attacking plants in Southern California. This pest is called a thrips. It has become a very serious problem to a common ornamental shrub in Ventura County. It is commonly used among highways and freeways. The thrips damages the plants leaves and causes spectacular and unsightly damage.

Myoporum Trees/Shrubs are the target

These trees are commonly used as privacy hedges. They are lined on hundreds of miles along California’s highways. They are a robust ever green tree that bears white (or near white) blossoms in winter to mid spring.It is a fast growing shrub or small tree which appears dome shaped at first.

The symptoms you see is a very tight leaf curl.

The pictures to the right show the leaf curl that occurs. This leaf curl, when left unchecked can quickly spread throughout the entire tree. This greatly diminishes the attractiveness of the tree/shrub. It detracts from the tree’s privacy hedge affect as well.

About the Thrips (the pests)

Thrips are sucking insects. They are similar this way to aphids, mealy bugs, whiteflies and scales. The biggest threat to ornamental plants are sucking insects, like the thrips. Thrips are very tiny, and hard to be seen by the naked eye. They can be seen squirming when you uncurl the leaves that they inhabit. Their entire life cycle is only 10 days. They lay eggs, that hatch into nymphs and quickly grow into maturity. They suck the life out of the plants.

There is an expectation that this new genus of thrips, called Klambothrips, will cause widespread damage along the 100’s of miles using the common Myoporum plant.

Kastle Kare Treatments

Kastle Kare treats these trees/shrubs and revives them back to life. Call our office to schedule an appointment to see if your plants are affected by this troubling pest.

Call today for an appointment

(805) 484-8181

Your lawn and ground cover should look beautiful

Our lawns are usually the most visible and beautiful part of our landscaping.  So, when lawn problems start, it makes a big impact on the appeal of our property.  There are many causes of problems in our lawn and ground cover.

• Weeds: There are many weeds that can invade and slowly, but surely, take over your beautiful lawn.  For example, dandelion, white clover, chickweed, or grass like weeds such as crabgrass, foxtails, stinkgrass, among many others.
• Dead Patches: Dead patches have many origins too, including insects such as the cutworm, bluegrass billbug, chinch bugs, and greenbugs.  Additionally, dead patches in your lawn can be caused by chemical or fertilizer burn, urine damage, and fungi.
• Powder on Grass or Rust: Your lawn loses its beauty when it has a powdery mildew or rust, which is a very common disease among residential lawns.
• Thin Turf: Thin turf can be caused by many issues, such as: drought, heat and cold, leaf spots, shade, soil problems, thatch, and traffic.
• Off-colored: When your lawn becomes dark or yellows, it looks unattractive.  The causes of this can come from a fungus, such as fairy rings, a dull lawn mower, inadequate nitrogen in the soil, or an iron deficiency.
• Holes: Holes in your landscape are usually caused by gophers, voles or moles in Southern California.  The most common of course is the gopher.  Gopher holes can devastate a beautiful landscape and lawn.  Read more about gophers here.
• Mushrooms: Mushrooms in your lawn are a sign of problems that must be dealt with effectively.  They are also unsightly.
• Moss and Algae: These conditions are usually caused by poor soil conditions that don’t allow your turf to grow well.

Kastle Kare provides the solutions to your landscape problems.

• Gopher Control
• Deep Root Fertilization
• Plant Disease Control
• Weed Control

Your Trees and Plants Add Value to Your Property

That’s right money does grow in trees.  In recent findings, it is estimated that healthy trees, shrubs, woody ornamentals and other landscape plants add an average of 15% to the value of a piece of property.

Healthy Plants and Trees Add Beauty

The obvious reason plants and trees add value is because of the beauty they create in your landscape.  We recognize it instantly when we see beautiful landscaping.  We also recognize in when the landscape is suffering from problems, especially in trees.

Tree Diseases and Pests Cause Great Damage

Landscape plants are vulnerable to a variety of diseases which are caused by

• fungi
• viruses
• bacteria
• nematodes

Most disease causing agents are microscopic.  Most homeowners won’t see the microorganisms which cause:

• blights
• Leaf Spots
• leaf curling
• Dying leaves
• and other problems

Although these tree and plant pests are small, the damage they cause is visible and diminishes the beauty of the property.

Kastle Kare’s Plant RX division is Ventura County’s Expert in Tree and Plant Disease Treatment

Gophers and Moles can destroy your landscape

Gophers can destroy your landscape when they are not controlled.  Your lawn can become riddled with very unsightly gopher holes and dirt mounds.  Plants can become smothered by the dirt mounds, thus killing them as well.  More damage can come from the gopher chewing through utility lines and irrigation lines.  Additionally, the soil dug up and brought to the surface of your landscape can cause greater erosion of the soil from rain water and sprinklers, causing a host of related problems.

Gophers are pests that must be dealt with

Because of these problems, gophers must be dealt with effectively to rid your property of their potential damage.  One difficulty in dealing with gophers is they frequently come back and must be dealt with again.  The reason for this is usually when your property has removed the gophers, your neighboring property still has them.  It is just a matter of time before gophers come back again to your property.

Recognizing Gophers

The way to recognize a gopher is to check out the gopher’s hole.  The gopher creates a gopher mound that typically is in a fan shape moving outward from the center of the hole.

Gophers eat plants, lots of them.  They are the usual culprit in your plant damage and disappearing plants.  Gophers can make tunnels up to 200 yards  in a year and move more than 2 tons of soil.

Kastle Kare, home of Gopherman, is the solution to your gopher problems — read more

Weeds in your lawn or turf can complete invade a healthy lawn. Weeds can gradually take over when left unchecked. The takeover will choke your lawn’s health. Weeds must be dealt with properly and effectively.

Some weeds are difficult to destroy

Many homeowners use the wrong methods to kill weeds in turf. The result is the weeds persist and continue to grow. Or, worse, damage is done to an otherwise healthy lawn. The wrong chemicals or treatments can cause more damage then help.

Kastle Kare’s team has the expertise and the equipment to eradicate weeds from your landscape

Whether you have a residential landscape, or a large park that needs treatment, Kastle Kare are the experts you need. We are prepared to treat all ranges of landscapes in Ventura County, Santa Barbara County and Los Angeles County.

weeds, lawn, plants, pest control, ventura county

We have invested heavily into our equipment to ensure your landscape is as healthy as possible and retains its beauty. Read more about why we are the best choice for your landscape beauty and health.

Kastle Kare’s Weed Control Services are the best in Ventura County