I can stroll through acres of local meadows and not find any ticks. Once I dare come close to bushes or go off tracks in the woods though, it's a disaster. I.e. I don't know why, but in any case the 'grass is riddled with ticks' seems highly location-dependent.

Unless you have wild mammals visiting your garden regularly it's quite unlikely there will be a single tick in it.

Critter fences are cheap and effective at preventing this without requiring you to create a sterile landscape or monoculture.

Mice are the primary carriers of Lyme disease