What do marigolds keep away

On the other hand, if your visitors are insect predators, like frogs and lizards, they're busy hunting and best left alone. Marigolds are often planted in conjunction with vegetable plants, to protect them from insects. When fruits are left to over-ripen on nearby vines, hungry animals will seek them out. Pick fruits just before or at ripening, so that animals aren't tempted to trample the marigolds that stand between them and fresh garden produce.

A range of repellants are available for most animal troublemakers. Spray marigolds that have been chewed on with a commercial spray made of capsaicin or thiram. You can also mix a hot sauce spray by combing a bottle of hot sauce with a gallon of water.

Apply the repellant spray of choice liberally to your afflicted marigolds, and recoat them often. Never place mothballs in gardens — they are not intended to be used outdoors and can be poisonous to children and pets. Depending on the offender in question, devices intended to scare animals away when they get too close to the garden may be helpful. Sprinklers designed to activate when movement is detected are available, but homemade scare tactics work equally well for some pests.

Gardeners often use aluminum pie pans hung where they will make lots of noise in the wind or portable radios to frighten away skittish animals. Marigolds contain a natural substance used in many pest repellents. You need to grow its seeds indoors the house for 50 to 60 days. Marigold grows in just about any kind of soil. However, damp soilless potting mix is used to grow the seeds. Position your marigolds near ponds or other water features. Marigolds can still grow on moist soil.

Place the flowers near the entrances of your home. Insects usually get inside houses using the same entryways as humans do. Essential oils are more powerful than the living plant. The downside? Wrap Up Overall, do marigolds repel mosquitoes? Related Posts. The BBC recommends planting marigolds alongside tomatoes, as the scent of these plants repels greenflies as well as blackflies.

According to the Missouri Botanical Garden , French marigolds also help keep away whiteflies, while Mexican marigolds repel rabbits that might forage on plants. Per the Arizona Cooperative Extension , marigolds also attract beneficial insects like ladybugs, lacewings and parasitic wasps that feed on common garden pests.

Although they can help keep certain pests at bay, marigolds are hardly pest-free themselves. According to the Clemson University Extension, spider mites can be a serious problem with marigolds. These small arachnids tend to be especially troublesome when the weather is hot and dry, so keeping your marigolds well-watered is key. Per the Missouri Botanical Garden , thrips, which are winged insects that suck the sap out of leaf cells, also attack marigolds. Yellow marigolds are so attractive to thrips that the University of New Hampshire Extension suggests them for use as an indicator plant to detect the presence of thrips in greenhouses.