When choosing your next set of plants, you might want to consider how it will help biodiversity thrive, as much as how to ensure that pests don't eat them all.
Because, yes, aesthetics is not all there is to think about when decking your garden with flowers. Sometimes, though, a plant fills all three of these criteria.
The scoop
@sowrightseeds 🌼🍁 Marigolds are a classic fall flower and also an excellent companion plant for pest management. #marigold #marigolds #fallflowers #fall #flowerborder #gardenhacks #naturgardening #homestead #organicgardening #naturalpestcontrol ♬ original sound - Sow Right Seeds
"One of the smartest things we have done in the garden this year is to plant a border along the entire edge of our garden in Crackerjack marigolds," TikToker Sow Right Seeds (@sowrightseeds) said in a video.
"Marigolds are a great companion plant: they help repel some of those unwanted pests," they added.
Although some of Gardenia website's experts believe that French marigolds are best to keep bugs away due to their strong scent, Crackerjack marigolds, which can grow as high as three feet, will do, too.
How it's helping
Some people put a lot of work into growing their own food or rewilding their yard in efforts to reconnect with nature.
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@sowrightseeds 🌼🍁 Marigolds are a classic fall flower and also an excellent companion plant for pest management. #marigold #marigolds #fallflowers #fall #flowerborder #gardenhacks #naturgardening #homestead #organicgardening #naturalpestcontrol ♬ original sound - Sow Right Seeds
But for such work to have lasting benefits on your bank account and your mental and physical health, there is one step that cannot be skipped: removing weeds and eliminating pests. And it might as well be done without any common chemicals, which contain fluorine that scientists recently linked to gene damage and multigenerational adverse health effects.
Planting Crackerjack marigolds will not only add some lively orange and yellow touches to your garden from midsummer to the first frost, but it will also repel roundworms and eelworms as well as some other garden pests, like aphids and caterpillars.
And that's not all. Marigolds are also known to attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs, lacewings, bees, and butterflies, which are essential to plant reproduction.
What everyone's saying
If a few TikTokers expressed their skepticism after seeing their marigolds being eaten, they seem to work miracles for most.
"I have an army of marigolds, lemongrass, mint. And citronella growing around everything. Never get a single pest of any kind," one of them commented.
"I absolutely love these! I have them all over my garden. The bumblebees love these too," another wrote.
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