Gardeners urged to plant 5 flowers to deter rats 'find them repulsive'
There's nothing worse than discovering a rat in your garden – these nasty rodents chew through your plants and spread disease. Luckily, there's an easy way to deter them.
Rats are pernicious pests and are known to eat everything from vegetables, meat scraps to rubbish. They can also spread nasty illnesses, like leptospirosis, which can cause potentially life-threatening complications like Weil's Disease. Fortunately, gardening experts recommend growing specific plants known to ward off vermin.
It might sound weird, but rats hate the scent of certain flowers and bushes, even though they might smell lovely to us. Pure Pests say these are the five best rat-banishing plants to grow, as reported by Yahoo News.
Lavender
Most of us adore lavender for its gentle floral smell. However, for rats, it creates a sensory nightmare, due to the plant's high concentration of essential oils.
It has the added benefit of attracting pollinators like bees and butterflies to your garden. This is especially important, given that butterfly numbers have dropped in the UK, according to Butterfly Conservation's Big Butterfly Count.
Mint
Humans love mint so much that we use it as a breath freshener. Well, not rats. Vermin hate the stringent freshness of mint so much that they go out of their way to avoid it.
This is because mint contains menthol and other compounds which they find unpleasant. Even better, the scent of the plant is quite strong, so it creates a wide smell-barrier which repels rats.
Marigold
These cheerful yellow flowers are known to have a heavy, musky smell, somewhat similar to overripe animals. While humans enjoy it, rats find their overpowering odour unpleasant.
An added bonus is that they also find the Marigold's bright colours off putting too. Rats prefer dimmer lighting and find bright lights and colours uncomfortable.
Catnip
This is a tip for cat-lovers. Catnip serves the dual purpose of attracting more felines to your yard, while also keeping nasty buck-toothed rodents at bay.
Catnip has a sharp, minty smell and contains the oil nepetalactone, which triggers a euphoric response in cats' brains. However, it does the opposite for rats, who are completely repelled by it.
Camphor plant
Camphor plants (not to be confused with the camphor tree) are gentle, leafy plants with dark fruits. Fortunately, their innocent appearance belies a rat-thwarting machine.
They have a sharp earthy scent that is often compared to Vick's Vaporub. It is also a deterrent to rats, who despise the plant. Research shows it can even be an effective rodenticide as it causes symptoms like irritability and blurred vision in rats.
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One person said: 'Reason why I would never buy a new build number 10287399.' Another added: 'We have the same. Heard it's a mixture of clay soil, lack of drainage, not enough topsoil, no vegetation and non stop rain.' Alongside shocked face emojis, a third simply commented: 'Brutal.' Meanwhile, another homeowner shared: 'The EXACT same thing has happened to all the gardens on my estate too.' Not only this, but someone else claimed: 'It seems like every new build has this problem.'
