There are plants you can grow at home to keep both flying and crawling insects away. Most of those plants are beautiful and some will keep a nice scent in the house while repelling insects at the same time.
There are plants that repel insects because they do not like their smell. Once the insects pick their scents, they will fly or crawl away. However, there are some plants that trap and kill insects. They depend on those insects for nutrients.
6 Plants that repel insects
Let us look at some plants that can repel insects and the types of insects that they keep away. We all have different insects that we want to get rid of. Therefore, need to know the type of insects that a plant will repel.
1. Common Marigold
Advice: There are 2 types of marigold that is the French and Mexican. Both of them are very beautiful plants that you can grow in your garden to repel and keep insects away. However, if you keep rabbits, do not grow the Mexican marigold because it will irritate them.
In case you are wondering how big the marigold plant can get, well, just know that the African marigold may go up to 12 centimeters wide at the head. In terms of the height, the African marigold can grow as tall as 90 centimeters.
It is only the French marigolds that are known to be shorter, smaller with an average height of 45 centimeters and a head that goes up to 5 centimeters wide.
And they are the best to keep indoors because they keep unwanted insects away and they are not harmful to pets.
Ins some cases, the Marigold will attract parasitic wasps in your back yard. This means that those wasps will feed on other bad bugs and this will help in keeping away insects including mosquitoes away from home.
If you have a whitefly infestation, the French marigold can help in repelling them. This is also ideal for mosquito-prone areas and it will naturally repel them. This plant will also keep nematodes away since they hate how it smells.
2. Rosemary
Rosemary has a sweet scent to humans and can be grown indoors to repel insects. Rosemary has the ability to repel mosquitoes and cockroaches that are among the common house pests.
When grown outside in the back yard or garden, the rosemary plant will keep the cabbage looper and snails away from home. Midgets and gnats are naturally repelled by the rosemary scent which is surprisingly amazing to humans.
The rosemary plant It will also help in keeping unwanted biting insects, mosquitoes and bugs away from your home. You may also want to have rosemary grown near your cabbage plantations because it will keep moths that destroy them away.
Advice: The rosemary plant will also help you a lot in getting rid of carrot flies in your kitchen. You may grow or keep the rosemary plant in containers and place them in your kitchen so that the scent can repel and keep away kitchen flies.
Spiders also hate it and they will stay away. This is great because nobody wants spiders in the house since some may not be really good especially if they bite you or your children.
The rosemary has also been proven to be good in repelling and keeping away roaches from your home. This is as simple as;
- Just cut or pluck the fresh rosemary leaves
- Cut into small pieces
- Spread this in areas were the roaches love to hide in your kitchen and house
- Leave them there for like 2 -4 days
- You may want to ensure that they are always fresh
Those are the simple steps on how you can use the rosemary plant to keep cockroaches away from home.
3. Basil
Basil has a strong scent that will naturally keep flying insects like mosquitoes and whiteflies away from your home. Traditionally, basil was grown close to human habitats to keep crawling and flying insects away.
If you have basil growing in the back yard, there will be no carrot flies or beetles around that area. It is important to keep the leaves healthy so that the scent produced is strong and efficient.
Advice: Basil can be grown in doors to keep flying insects away but you need to ensure that it has enough light. It will not do well in dark areas and if the room is dark, then have a bulb (fluorescent) turned on to supply enough light.
4. Sage: does it keep bugs away?
Advice: Sage is also another plant that you can keep to repel insects especially if you have a wasp infestation. As much as sage will also repel other insects like carrot flies, it is very effective when you want to keep beetles and wasps away.
Sage has a very concentrated smell that both crawling and flying insects do not like. Some people love to plant it along the fence or even randomly in the back yard.
When the leaves drop and dry, they are still as good because they will still repel crawling insects that may end up entering your house.
When at a camping site and you have a light bonfire, you may want to drop few leaves of sage in there. The burning smell when moved with the smoke will keep several frying insects away from you.
The burning sage has also been observed as a good way of keeping people positive because of the ions it produces as it burns.
Apart from keeping flying insects away, burning sage will also help you in disinfecting any bacteria that is airborne around you. This is now to be one of the best natural air purifiers and many people like burning it because of those advantages.
5. Lavender
We all know that lavender has a very unique and strong smell but it can also keep insects away from your house.
Advice: Lavender can be grown indoors to repel moths, flying insects, and fleas. It should be grown in moderate soil that drains water well with enough sunlight. It will also keep moths and mosquitoes away since they cannot stand its smell.
Lavender will keep beetles away from your home and its unique aroma is also something you really want to have a round you. It is safe to grow at home and it safe for you pets as well.
It is also a natural remedy that you really need to keep at home or even in your kitchen counter since it will also keep away spiders from home.
6. Lemon balm
Lemon balm is also a good natural insect repellant and it will keep away biting insects like mosquitoes and other crawling bugs. This is because of what is known as citronellal that it contains.
Traditionally, a mixture of lemon balm was used to keep children from bug bites because there was no proper housing. Here is how it was done;
- Take some fresh leaves of lemon balm and place in a clean container
- Ad just a little bit of water then crushes them so that they can make a good concentrated solution
- Apply directly on the exposed areas where the bugs like to bite while you are sleeping
- Just do that in small quantities and let it settle
This will keep insects away from the plant and that is one reason why many people like a growing lemon balm in their back yards to help in keeping insects away.
Plants that kill insects
Another plant that you may have in your back yard to keep away flying insects is the carnivorous plants that trap them for food.
It is actually not a bad idea because it is simply natural selection at its best. While the plant will be eating those insects, your home will also remain free from flying insects. One of the common plants grown to keep insects away from home is the Venus flytrap plants.
Some of those plants like the Venus will also look really nice when well taken care of in your backyard. This is a very good way of getting rid of insects naturally at home using plants.
Plants That Trap and Kill Insects
Flytrap plants are a unique group of plants that are carnivorous. They feed on insects and mostly grow in areas where very little nutrients are found in the soil.
Their feeding process involves trapping of the insects, production of digestive juices, dissolving the insects, and deriving nutrients from them.
1. The North American Pitcher plant
This is also known as the Sarracenia. This one makes use of a pitfall trap. The leaves of the plant form a funnel that has a structure similar to a hood over the opening.
This helps in preventing any rain water from getting in as this would dilute its digestive juices. Insects passing close to it get attracted by color , the nectar secretion and the smell. With its slippery nature, the insects fall into the digestive juices where they are digested.
2. Monkey Cups
This plant is also known as Nepenthes or tropical pitcher plant. These are also carnivorous plants tat trap their prey through pitfalls. These plants are referred to as monkey cups becaue at times monkeys have been caught drinking water from them.
These plants have shallow roots . it has sword like leaves tht grow from the stems. At the tip of the leaves are tendrils which are meant to give a way for the insects to climb to it.
There is what begins to form as a bulb but later develops into a cup at the end of the tendril. This is what traps the insects.
It contains some fluid that is produced by the plant to help in drowning and digesting the insects. At the lower part the cup has glands that absorb as well as distribute the nutrients obtained.
3. Corkscrew Plant
This is also known as Genlisea. It grows in semi acquatic and terrestrial environments. The plant grows in the form of small herbs that produce yellow flowers. They make use of traps that are very easy to get into but hard to exit. These are known as lobster pot traps.
4. Genlisea
These are some small herbs that have yellow flowers. These make lobster traps as well. They have a spiral that forwards insects forward.
Their leaves come in two different types. They have some that are underground which are meant to attract, bait and digest living organisms.
The underground leaves also act as roots. They anchor the plant as well as absorb water. Their corkscrew shape helps them to attract insects. There also are leaves above the ground that are photosynthetic.
References:
- Healthy paws: Is lavender safe for dogs by Colleen Williams
- UCDAVIS: Plants that are toxic to pets by Lauren Eichstadt