Best plants for repelling unwanted bugs naturally
Summertime is perfect for spending time outside. You can’t do some gardening without contact with dirt and plants, but this also means having contact with insects that can be irritating or even transmit diseases. You could spray your yard with poisonous pesticides that last for months, but do you want some poison liquid spread all over the yard where your kids are playing, and your pets are hanging around? I guess you don’t want that.
Another way to get rid of the unwanted bugs is to plant some herbs that are known to keep them at bay. You can combine different plants for this purpose and plant them around your lawn, the dog’s house or a little bit of something in each corner of the yard. Your pets will sleep calmer with no fleas or ticks bothering them, and you lower the chances that some mosquito makes a meal out of you or your kids.
The repellent plants to be mentioned here look good, smell good, and the bugs hate them. So, if you suffer from all these annoying little creatures, here’s a list of plants that will help your garden look prettier and keep it free from a number annoying critters.
Lavender
It may look different, but lavender is a plant from the mint family. Lavender has beautiful purple flowers almost all year round, so there is no reason not to have it all over your back yard. Not only will it attract beneficial nectar feeding insects to your garden, lavender repels ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes. It also deters moths as well, making it a great shrub to plant in your vegetable patch or near fruit trees. A pouch of dried lavender flowers can be used in your closet instead of mothballs. We’re sure you’ll agree that the smell is much nicer and lavender has the advantage of being non-toxic. Another great use for lavender is to keep a few sprigs in the kitchen to repel fruit flies.
Rosemary
Rosemary is a bushy plant with an incredible fragrance that you can smell every time the wind blows through it. You might want to plant few of these bushes in your vegetable plot and enjoy their fast growth. Rosemary will help to deter mosquitoes, flies, and a number of vegetable plant pests too. A natural bug repellent spray can be made from boiling up some dried rosemary in water and leaving it to cool, or by adding a few drops of the essential oil to a carrier oil which you can apply directly to your skin. Also, rosemary is a wonderful ingredient in cooking or made into a delicious tea sweetened with honey.
Feverfew
Feverfew is great to have around the yard or in pots on your kitchen window. This medicinal plant is not only a repellent for all the flying biting bugs you don’t like, but is also reputed to help in treating fever, headache, bloating, and anxiety. So having feverfew around will protect you from bug bites and let you sleep calmly.
Chamomile
Is there someone who doesn’t like the mild chamomile tea before going to bed? Dried chamomile leaves and flowers have calming properties that relax our nervous system and provide us with a deep natural sleep. Apart of repelling ticks and mosquitoes, chamomile repels flies too. It’s cute white and yellow flowers always look good around the backyard. Chamomile grows and spreads fast, so you’ll have it ready in a short time.
Sage
This plant is another multi-use plant belonging to the mint family that makes a great addition to your flower border or window box. Like rosemary, it’s essential oil can be used to make a natural mosquito repellent. Its dried leaves are good to make a tea, or why not try tying up a mixed bug repelling bundle of herbs like sage, rosemary, and mint to place around the house or decking.
Chrysanthemum
The chrysanthemum is a beautiful flowering plant that comes in many colors and varieties. Whatever type you choose, you’ll have your yard blooming throughout the summer. They dry out in fall and revive again in spring. Not only will the flowers look and smell lovely, they contain pyrethrins which will keep a whole host of bugs including ants, ticks, mosquitoes, roaches, and silverfish, at bay. Now you know that, everyone wants to be around the “mums”.
If you have the chance, always use a natural solution for any garden problem. Try to avoid pesticides and chemicals that will kill the pests, but can also harm your kid’s and pet’s health.
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