They are bad this year
The other day, I went outside to fix Junior’s seat on the bike. As I was tightening a bolt, I looked at my leg and there were five mosquitoes bellied up to the buffet. Ugh. I looked at Junior and she had some on her too. Took her inside, I hit myself with some Off and continued working. Anyway, via MCB, we learn that some plants repel the little buggers. Good to know. We have a Rosemary bush (for eating) on the side yard. Now, I’m gonna put a couple by the front and back porches.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hippie!
It can’t hurt, but whenever we’ve had plants that supposedly kept away bugs (like certain geranium species and marigolds) it didn’t seem to make any difference. Likewise for tiki torches with citronella (but I like the torches anyway for atmosphere).
July 31st, 2007 at 11:38 am
Next year I’m going to plant a crapload of marigolds. I’m also going to plant a bunch of catnip, since my cats are catnip addicts. We’ll see how it works for mosquito prevention.
July 31st, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Basil is the one my family swears by. And it continues to smell nice when it dies and dries out too.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Ivy,
You could sell tickets to watch your cats tripping in your garden.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Marigolds don’t do a damn thing. After three years of planting craploads of them, I gave up.
I also took the fly traps down, and notice that I now have far fewer flies. Apparently the traps were attracting more than they were killing. (Of course it also helps that the neighbors who never picked up their dog crap no longer live next door…)
And yes, the mosquitoes have been terrible this year, even though we’ve been in a really bad drought.