Naturally Repel Stink Bugs From Your Garden With These Essential Oils

It's no surprise you're finding stink bugs in your garden — they're sucking the juices out of your plants like little vegetarian vampires. It's bad enough when they invade your home, but then they're out munching up all of your flowers and vegetables. These pentatomids are also laying their eggs in your plants: When those little nymphs hatch, they too will search out food in your garden and on your property. While the bugs aren't harmful to humans, they are annoying, and as their name implies, they emit a terrible stench when threatened or squashed. If you're looking for natural ways to deter stink bugs from eating your plants, consider using essential oils.

Ironically, though their own scent is off-putting to us, the aromas of essential oils like lemongrass and spearmint, which we find pleasant, these pests don't like. It's important to note that this type of deterrent isn't a one-and-done thing. The scent and potency of essential oils fade quickly after spraying them in the target area, so you will need to reapply them frequently, potentially multiple times a day, until the stink bugs stop visiting. If you're up to the challenge of using essential oils around your garden or patio daily, then grabbing the right oils to get the job done will be your next step.

Peppermint is just one of the essential oils that can help keep stink bugs out of your garden. Other essential oils reported to be potent against stink bugs include spearmint, lemongrass, clove, and ylang-ylang, which have all been demonstrated in controlled research to keep these bugs away. Essentially, they don't like the aromas and they may even be irritating to them. 

The same study found that the essential oils from Pennyroyal, geranium, rosemary, and wintergreen oils are all helpful, though less so than the above mentioned options. Instead of using the oils, you can also plant these pest-repelling aromatic flowers and herbs around your garden (pennyroyal is toxic, so be careful where you plant it). In addition to the garden, consider using these essential oils around your yard or bird feeders to repel pests.

To get the most out of essential oils, you don't need to dilute them — you want the most potent scent to keep those bugs at bay. However, rather than spraying them around the garden, use cotton balls dipped in the oils and place them near the plants the bugs seem to like. Spraying in the air will waste your oils, and you won't have as much control over where it's going. Also, try using the oils more when stink bugs are most active, which is in the morning up until early afternoon.