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Building a thriving garden is tough enough without pests creeping in and ruining your harvest. There are many natural ways to deter pests, and flowers are one of our favorite choices. Since they add beauty and allow you to keep pesky critters away, flowers are one of the best choices for a natural way to deter pests. This list helps you choose the right flower for your individual pest concerns.
Flowers To Deter Pests from Your Garden
I love that I can keep my organic gardening stance by using flowers to deter pests instead of nasty chemicals in my gardens. That said, some flowers listed below are actually fragrant or flowering herbs. There are multiple choices for each common pest so you are sure to be able to find something to work for your garden needs.
When considering what herbs or flowers to deter pests that you will be placing inside your garden, take the time to think about things you can use. Herbs that are useful in cooking should be you top choices. Next you will want to choose flowers that are attractive and functional. Finally, as a last choice shrubs and larger plants can be added.
For deer: Deer are often pests that like to eat not only the leaves on vegetable plants, but also occasional your flowers and even fresh produce. There are many people who build fences around their garden, but that is a lot of effort that isn’t necessary. Instead, use some of the herbs and flowers to deter pests from your garden that we have listed below.
- Lavender
- Mint
- Thyme
- Lamb’s Ear
- Peony
- Bluebell
- Buttercup
- Daffodil
- Forget-Me-Not
- Hyssop
- Lily of the Valley
Deer especially tend to avoid plants with strong odors or that have prickly exterior. Things with thorns, thistles, or prickly flowers are great ways to keep them from entering a garden. That said, the produce or flowers that have a sweet smell are desirable to them, so planting something pungent like thyme, lavender, or mint will help mask that odor and keep deer out of your garden.
For rabbits: Rabbits tend to go for ground covering and lower hanging plants since they are near the ground. This means some of your root vegetables like carrots, beets, and even squash can be at risk. Using flowers to deter pests like rabbits is easy since you really only have to worry about things low to the ground. They don’t like pungent odors, and are especially repelled by the sweetness of honeysuckle and verbena.
Planting things like impatients or periwinkle around your garden or at the end of each row can work wonderfully. You may consider having your onion or garlic plants around the outside edges of your garden instead of interior rows to help ward off rabbits. These are both functional to deter pests from your garden, and also edibles that can be harvested.
For insects: These are the real pests that most struggle with keeping out of their garden. Some insects and critters are actually great for keeping inside your garden. Ladybugs for instance are great for keeping other insects off of plants and are often used as a deterrent in themselves. Planting specific flowers to deter pests, or even other herbs or vegetables can help you harvest the crops of vegetables you want and need to stretch your budget and feed your family.
- Basil
- Catnip
- Chamomile
- Geraniums
- Hyssop
- Peppermint
- Petunia
- Thyme
- Rosemary
Insects of various kinds can be good or bad in your vegetable or flower garden. Ideally, planting things like catnip, peppermint, petunias, or rosemary will help keep the bulk of your frustrations out of the garden and keep you from having the frustration of going to harvest vegetables and finding stems have been eaten.
How to use flowers to deter pests from you garden: It may seem overwhelming to figure out what flowers or herbs you want to use in your garden to help keep things like rabbits, deer, and insects away. Ideally, you can use only a few things that will work against the bulk of your garden pests.
Most of these common garden pests are repelled easily by strong odors. Starting simply by putting things like onion, garlic, and fragrant herbs like lavender, mint, basil, and chamomile around the outside edges of your garden is a great place to begin.
If you continue to have issues with pests in your garden, identify which ones are causing problems and add in flowering plants like impatients, petunias, or daffodils throughout the outside edges of your garden. They can be arranged beautifully as landscape, or simply planted as a barrier.
If you find you are keeping pests out of the outside edges, but they are still getting through to the interior of your garden, then you may want to create a center row of plants that are just there to deter pests. Herbs or flowers to deter pests are easy to intermingle throughout your vegetable plants. If you are using in your flower garden, it is even easier to manage by simply adding them into your existing design.
Planting these flowers to deter pests from your garden will not only be pretty, but useful. Ideally, you want to plant these around the edges of your garden to keep things like deer, rabbits, or birds from entering your garden in the first place. Watch and see what particular pests seem to be around your yard, and get proactive by planting ahead of time so they never actually get into your garden. For things like insects, it may be more difficult to manage since you won’t know until after they have already arrived. That said, if you plant flowers to deter pests before they arrive, you hopefully won’t seen many if any problems in your vegetable or flower garden.
