Mosquito Repelling Plants and Herbs, Backyard Colorado

Summer is so close I can already taste the jalapeno poppers and

Fat Tire! I love my backyard, and I love spending a lot of time in it when I am not off photographing weddings and adventurous couples.

What I don't love is the mosquitoes!

So, for the past 7 years, I have been planting these

mosquito-repelling pots at the beginning of the summer.

They sit at the bottom of our deck staircase. Our patio set is just to the right of these pots, so the location works great. We have not had a mosquito problem in our backyard since I

started planting them!

Girl Scout Promise!

Each year, I plant a different herb or flower to ward off the mosquitoes.

This year, I am going to plant lemon balm, lemon thyme, citronella balm, mint, marigolds, lavender and ageratum.

After dropping my kids off at school this morning,

I hurried into Longmont to The Flower Bin.

I love going here!

They have unique plants that your general store will not carry. A lot of their workers are also very knowledgeable horticulturalists!

I stumbled upon one of their employees, and she recommended using ageratum, lemon balm and citronella balm instead of a regular citronella plant,and regular lemon grass. She suggested the ageratum to add a nice pop of color.

These are all perennials, not annuals, which means I won't have to plant these again next year!

Except the marigolds. Boom!!!

The marigolds, lavender and catnip came from Home Depot.

The lemon balm, Citronella balm, peppermint and ageratum came from the Flower Bin.

To begin with, I cleaned out my planters and then added

Dr. Earth natural organic all purpose fertilizer

Ick!

Last year's left overs :(

I ripped out as much as I cold by hand.

The I used The Claw to rip out everything else!

The old stuff.

Then I tilled the dirt to mix it all in and oxygenate it

Now to the fun part!

Getting my hands in the dirt!

I really don't have a rhyme or reason for where I planted each one of the plants. After I finished planting one pot, I proceeded to the next one and repeated the same process, mirroring the right pot. The left pot is short on thyme (aren't we all! Hahaha!) It didn't grow back in that one from last year, so I will need to go get one more thyme.

Once I was done, I replaced my awesome glass chickens from Home Depot. They don't work anymore because they are old. I need to buy replacement batteries for them. But I love them so much, they had to stay!