7 Plants Ticks Hate the Most (#1 Surprises Everyone)

Every fix Gary's built — house, garden, homestead, pests — is in one place. 👉 https://garystips.com There's a house where the whole yard smells like a perfume shop — lavender, rosemary, mint — and they have a fraction of the tick problem their neighbors do, with no chemical spray truck ever pulling in. Because ticks, for all they're tough little disease-carriers, genuinely can't stand certain plants: plants that put out compounds bugs hate, and a few that are the literal source of the bug spray you buy at the store. Gary's spent his life around houses and gardens, and here are the 7 best ones, ranked — with the honest truth about which really work and which are mostly hype, because half the videos on this topic will lie to you. HONEST TRUTH UP FRONT: a living plant is NOT a force field. The repellent compounds are concentrated in the oils, and a plant just sitting there releases only a little into the air right around itself — so a lavender bush won't protect a yard 50 feet away. What they do is create a "ticks would rather not be here" zone right where they're planted. So plant them THICK, as a border, along the tick zones (the shady lawn-woods edge), and brush/crush the leaves to release the oils. Used that way they genuinely help. As a magic shield, they'll let you down. Gary's neighbor June, an avid gardener, hated the idea of spraying chemicals over the garden she loved — so she built a deep mixed border along her wood line and patio (beautyberry and pyrethrum backbone, lavender, catmint, rosemary, sage, marigolds), mowed tight, cleared brush, and laid a wood-chip path. She still does her tick checks — but her tick encounters dropped way down, and in exchange she got a yard that smells like heaven, hums with bees, feeds the birds all winter, and never needed a chemical truck. Her defense turned out to be the most beautiful thing she ever grew. 📍 Drop your state and tell Gary which of these already grows in your yard. #gardening #pestcontrol #homesteading #ticks #plants #garystips