Pesky pests and critters can make life difficult for you and your family. The good news is there are certain plants that can help repel pests in your garden.
Generally, these plants emit scents that may be pleasant for humans but are intolerable for insects. Today, we’ll be talking about 7 plants that help repel pests.
Basil
Basil is an annual, or sometimes perennial, herb used for its leaves. This easy to grow herb can repel flies, mosquitoes, the carrot fly, asparagus beetles, and whiteflies thanks to its aromatic oils.
You can plant them as a companion to tomatoes in order to prevent flies, thrips, and hornworms from wreaking havoc in your garden patch.
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If you’re having friends over and dining on your porch, you can also scatter shredded pieces of basil leaves or place stalks of fresh basil in your floral centerpiece to repel mosquitoes.
Lime basil can also be burned as an incense to repel insects in your home. Use a fire safe container—such as a metal container with holes in the lid designed for burning incense—and keep the container away from other flammable materials to reduce the risk of fire.
Citronella Grass
Citronella grass, is a perennial aromatic plant from the family Poaceae, originating in tropical Asia. Essential oils are extracted from the aerial parts and are applied topically as an insect repellent.
If you have cats who love to spend time in your garden, you can plant citronella to protect your garden bed from their curious paws.
Nasturtiums
Nasturtium is a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants. They have showy, often intensely bright flowers, and rounded, shield-shaped leaves with the petiole in the center. The flowers are bisexual and zygomorphic, with five petals and a funnel-shaped nectar spur at the back.
It can repel squash bugs, aphids (though there is conflicting information with some sources stating it attracts aphids), many beetles, and the cabbage looper.
They are also used as companion plants for biological pest control, repelling some pests, acting as a trap crop for others and attracting predatory insects.
Petunia
Petunia is an annual plant from the family Solanaceae, subfamily Petunioideae. They can tolerate relatively harsh conditions and hot climates, but not frost. They need at least five hours of sunlight every day and flourish in moist soil and conditions of low atmospheric humidity.
Petunias can repel aphids, tomato hornworm, asparagus beetles, leafhoppers, and squash bugs thanks to their licorice-like scent.
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Rosemary
Rosemary is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple, or blue flowers, native to the Mediterranean region.
This herb can repel cabbage loopers, the carrot fly, cockroaches, mosquitoes, slugs, and snails, as well as the Mexican bean beetle.
Thyme
Thyme is a bushy, woody-based evergreen subshrub with small, highly aromatic, grey-green leaves and clusters of purple or pink flowers in early summer.
It repels cabbage loopers, cabbage maggots, corn earworms, whiteflies, and tomato hornworms.
In order to use it as an insect repellent, you need to bruise thyme leaves so they can release aromatic compounds and chemicals that pests hate.
Lavender
Lavender is a genus of annual or short-lived herbaceous perennial plants, and shrub-like perennials, subshrubs, or small shrubs
These dainty purple plants repel moths, scorpions, water scorpions, fleas, flies, and mosquitoes. Their pleasant and sweet fragrance deters unwanted bugs due to its linool content.
You can grow beautiful flowers and herbs and plant them strategically to deter certain pests from certain places and no one will even know your plan.
No need to purchase chemicals that could harm your family, pets, and the environment. Just use plants to combat the issues you’re facing in your garden.
Do you have tips for repelling pests in the garden? Please leave them in the comments below!
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