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How to Drive Bugs Away with These Ten Pest Repellant Plants

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If you are looking for a humane way to help keep bugs and insects away, consider adding some of these plants to your garden. Not only will they help to keep your yard pest free, but they will also add appeal to your property. The herbs can be a wonderful addition, as well, because you can also use them to season your food.

  1. Alliums

Known as a broad-spectrum natural insecticide, these plants can repel many insects that bother your vegetable garden, including slugs. Plants that can benefit from being near alliums include carrots, broccoli, peppers, and tomatoes, among others.

Plants in the allium family include chives, garlic chives, leeks, and shallots. These plants will also keep aphids away from rose bushes.

  1. Basil

Repels flies and mosquitoes. Place these plants near areas of entertaining or that receive a lot of foot traffic. A benefit of having this herb around is that you can, of course, use it for cooking.

You can also make insect repellent spray out of the fresh basil. Combining water, basil, and vodka, you can get decent bug spray. There are a variety of recipes on the internet explaining in detail how to do this.

  1. Chrysanthemums

Repels roaches, ants, ticks, lice, fleas, bed bugs, silverfish, spider mites, Japanese beetles, harlequin bugs and root-knot nematodes. Pyrethrum is the magical ingredient that can be extracted from chrysanthemums to repel all of these pests.

Even though pyrethrum is extremely effective, it doesn’t work on all bugs. People can get similar looking bugs confused. For example, it’s important to know the difference between scabies and bed bugs because pyrethrum can repel bed bugs but not scabies. You don’t want to think you are treating a problem when in reality, you are not.

Pyrethrum does such a good job at killing jumping and flying insects that it is used in many insecticides, pet shampoos, and aerosol bombs. Be careful, though, because pyrethrum in spray form can be harmful to people.

  1. Lavender

Repels fleas, flies, mosquitoes, and moths. You can enjoy the wonderful smell of lavender and not be bothered by so many bugs. This is because insects don’t like the fragrance.

In addition to smelling wonderful and helping to keep away bugs, they also look nice and can be planted in enormous amounts without appearing strange. Don’t forget to cut some for vases inside the house.

With all this lavender around, you must be wondering what else to do with all of it. You can use the oil from the plant’s flowers as an insect repellent. Simply rub some of the oils on your skin when you go outside.

By extracting the oils, you can make a lavender-infused body oil. The oil can help nourish your skin and also has a calming effect.

  1. Lemon Thyme

Repels mosquitoes. This herb needs sun, but that’s about it. You can plant it in an herb garden or dry, shallow soil – this plant can adapt to many conditions. To use as a mosquito repellent, you must break the leaves to release the natural oils.

Lemon thyme is best used fresh. Chop the leaves just before using and add at the very end of the cooking process before they lose flavor and color. Lemon thyme may be added to poultry, seafood, vegetables, stews, soups, sauces and stuffing while fresh sprigs of this herb can make a lovely garnish.

  1. Lemongrass

Repels mosquitoes. For those unaware, the oil that comes from lemongrass is citronella. It is used in the citronella candles you have probably purchased before to help keep bugs away.

This plant can grow quite big, so keep that in mind when planting them outside. They tend to do better in sunny, well-drained areas. The plant’s leaves can also be used for cooking.

  1. Marigolds

Repels aphids, mosquitoes, and rabbits. The roots also repel nematodes. It is suggested to plant marigolds throughout your garden because they can help with the growth of other plants.

In sunny locations, marigolds can thrive very easily. The downside is that they can easily have problems with root rot, mildew and mold.

  1. Mint

Repels mosquitoes. By extracting the plant’s oils and mixing with apple cider vinegar and vodka, you can make an insect repellent. You can also place pots of planted mint around your garden to keep bugs away from the other plants.

It is advised that you keep mint planted in pots, rather than the ground. It can be an aggressive plant, spreading fast and difficult to remove.

Mint leaves chopped up and combined with mulch used for broccoli, cabbage and turnips can help them grow more successfully. The leaves can also be used to flavor iced tea or mojitos.

  1. Petunias

Repels aphids, squash bugs, asparagus beetles, tomato hornworms and asparagus beetles. You can plant them in sunny areas near vegetables and herbs, such as tomatoes, peppers and the basil you just planted, to help protect them from these bugs.

These plants are a great choice because they are available in so many bright colors and require very little upkeep, seamlessly blending into your garden. You can plant them in gardens, pots or hanging baskets – they always look wonderful.

  1. Rosemary

Repels mosquitoes and other insects that might be harmful to some vegetable plants. Different varieties grow best under different conditions, so make sure you purchase the one that works best for where you want to put the plant.

Rosemary can be added to food for extra flavoring and it can also be made into an insect repellent spray.

These are just some of the many plants that you can incorporate into your garden to help repel bugs and insects. You can also place a lot of them around sitting and eating areas to deal with annoying mosquitoes.

Unfortunately, these plants aren’t powerful enough to keep all bugs away. If after you have integrated some of these plants into your garden and are still not happy with the number of insects around, you may want to call a pest control company.

4 Comments on “How to Drive Bugs Away with These Ten Pest Repellant Plants

  1. I live in florida and believe me the mosquitoes are terrible here. I’m always looking for natural ways to repel the pests! Might have to pick up some of these plants for my backyard porch! Good read!

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