Lawn care is an important part of keeping your home looking beautiful, but dangerous insects will eat your grass and try to destroy its beauty if you are not careful. Many homeowners are turning to DIY treatment techniques to manage their pest invasion, including the use of dish detergent. Is this an effective and safe way to manage pests?

Dish Detergent Will Kill Insects...But At A Price

A variety of websites have advertised homemade dish detergent lawn care techniques as a safe and effective way to kill insects and pests on your lawn. Basically you mix water, liquid dish soap, and vegetable oil together in a bottle and spray it directly on the affected surfaces of your plants. The idea is to spray it directly on the insects, let it soak in, and then rinse it off with a hose after about an hour.

The dish soap will sap the protective oils off of the insects and cause them to dehydrate and die. Unfortunately dish detergent will actually do the same thing to your plants. In fact it can actually cause your plants to brown and die more quickly than any lawn pest.

Dish Detergent Contains Sodium Lauryl Sulphate

Why is dish detergent so harmful to your lawn's health? It contains a chemical known as sodium lauryl sulphate. This chemical helps break up the oils and stains on your dishes but will also do the same thing to your plants. Unfortunately this will cause your plants to dehydrate and die, particularly grass blades that are already heavily affected by harmful pests.

In the past, sodium lauryl sulphate was actually briefly considered for approval as a pesticide agent. However, it was denied because experts found it was too damaging to grass and surrounding plants and caused other pollution damage that made it too dangerous for regular use.

There Is A Safer Alternative

So while dish soap may be a useful lawn care method for eliminating pests, it is too harmful for your grass to consider as a long-term solution. However, there is an alternative: low-toxicity pesticide soaps. These soaps have been created to target soft-bodied insects, like scale crawlers, spider mites, and aphids. It will coat them and remove their protective wax and cause them to dry up.

They are also designed to avoid the kind of harsh chemicals that make dish detergent so dangerous for plants and grass. In fact they can actually wash off honeydew sap and mold, two items that can heavily impact the health of your plants. Even more impressive, they won't harm other animals or most beneficial insects, such as bees and ladybugs.

For more information, contact local professionals like Mr Green Thumb.

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