6 comments by Juanita Schulze
Some plants can actually repel rodents from the garden. David's Garden Seeds® sells most of the seeds you need to do it.
What are rodents? Rodents are defined as small mammals with extra incisors who like to gnaw such as mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, moles, squirrels, beavers, ferrets, muskrats, porcupines, woodchucks, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and a whole lot more. These animals can destroy your garden quickly if left unattended.
Fortunately, there are plants that these animals do not like.
First, you can plant herbs around your garden, sort of like a protective wall to repel rodents. Herbs that have the strongest smells such as mint (especially peppermint), catnip, rosemary, sage, lavender, oregano, and basil are the most effective plants at keeping these unwelcome creatures away.
They do not like marigolds and painted daisies, either, so plant them around the border of your garden.
Rodents hate the strong smell of garlic. Garlic does not come from seeds, but get some garlic bulbs and plant those in your garden to keep rodents away.
Another garlic tip is to chop garlic finely and boil in water. Then strain the garlic pieces out and put the garlic water in a spray bottle. Spray the bottoms of your plants to keep the rodents away. Spread chopped garlic around the outside of your garden.
We sell garlic cloves and we have some left over cloves. I plan on putting them in the press we purchased and see if we can press the juice out of them. Then experiment with various formulas to get the one that is just right. Or we will look on the web and see if someone else has already figured it out for us.
The best benefit of using garlic spray is that it means NOT using other, more toxic pesticides in your garden. It’s an eco-friendly, green way to treat pest and disease problems. I hope it will also keep out the red cut ants. We shall see.
Coffee grounds sprinkled around your garden can repel rodents as they do not like the smell of coffee.
Rodents do not like the smell of human hair. If you know someone who has a salon or barber shop, ask if you can take some hair out of their trash can and sprinkle that around your garden. It seems rodents do not like it when we humans are around.
6 comments
Ramon Rodriguez
Iv’e done all the natural things to repel insects and rodents – pepermint, garlic, coffee grounds. Why do some people recommend them as absolutes and then other people say they don’t work?
Anonymous
We do not sell marigold seeds in bulk.
MB
All of my Marigolds have been eaten!?!?
Dessalegne Gella
I need to know the best rat repellent plants
Karla
I do not believe the peppermint. I have horses and mice have taken over their feed. There is peppermint in the bin where the feed is and the mice eat it. I prefer not to put out poison even if I did the way our barn is we can not and keep our stock out of it. Can’t have cats, because coyotes are to bad, do have a snake the hangs around in summer, but during winter months we have nothing.
