Denver Gardening Hacks: Top Flowers for Pest Control and Protections
There's nothing quite like a garden bed interplanted with flowers – they bring beauty, color, and a sense of joy to any kitchen garden. But did you know they can also protect your veggies from pests? This means less work for you in maintaining a healthy, organic garden, and who doesn't love that?
In Denver's vibrant kitchen gardens, flowers do more than add beauty and color—they play an important role in maintaining a healthy, organic ecosystem. Integrating flowers into your vegetable beds can significantly reduce pest problems, minimizing the need for manual intervention.
Keep reading to learn how certain flowers can act as natural pest deterrents while boosting your flourishing garden environment.
In this blog, you’ll learn:
How Flowers Protect Your Vegetables:
The Best Flowers for Pest Control
Using Herbs as Companion Plants
Supporting Beneficial Insects with Perennials
How Flowers Protect Your Vegetables
Flowers protect vegetables in several key ways. They can repel harmful insects with their strong scents, attract beneficial insects, or even confuse pests by masking the smells of nearby vegetables.
Here are our 4 favorite natural flower defenders to add to your Denver garden.
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5 Tips for Productivity in the Garden
1. Nasturtiums: The Insect Repellent
Flowers like nasturtiums can keep cabbage loopers, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles away so, surround your cabbage, squash, and cucumbers with these powerhouses.
Benefits: Nasturtiums are excellent for keeping away cabbage loopers, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles.
Companion Planting: Surround your cabbage, squash, and cucumbers with nasturtiums to protect these veggies. Choose between trailing and mounding varieties based on your garden layout.
2. Marigolds: The Tomato Protectors
These vibrant beauties form a dream team with nasturtiums to keep cabbage worms, squash bugs and cucumber beetles at bay.
So, bring in the marigolds and plant them near your brassicas, squash, and cucumbers.
Benefits: Marigolds are known to deter cabbage worms, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles and can attract snails and slugs (keeping them away from your tomatoes!)
Varieties: Whether you opt for the petite French marigolds or the larger African marigolds, these flowers are perfect for planting near brassicas, squash, and cucumbers.
3. Calendula: The Aphid Catcher
Calendula has sticky stems that trap aphids, so plant them near beans, tomatoes, melon, cucumber and especially brassicas to lure aphids away.
Benefits: Trapping aphids, thus protecting beans, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, and brassicas.
Attract Beneficials: Plant calendula to draw ladybugs, lacewings, and hoverflies (cute tiny bees that help out!)
4. Sweet Alyssum: Pollinators
Sweet alyssum is a low-growing ground cover that can be tucked all around the garden, attracting the good guys like ladybugs and bees that prey on pests.
Benefits: Attracts beneficial insects like ladybugs and bees, boosts pollination and pest control
Herbs as Companion Plants
Annual herbs like basil, cilantro, and parsley and perennial herbs like oregano, thyme, and mint have small flowers that attract beneficial insects and would add plant diversity to your beds. Plus their strong smell repels a wide variety of pests!
Annual Herbs: Basil, cilantro, and parsley not only attract beneficial insects with their flowers but also repel pests with their strong scents.
Perennial Herbs: Oregano, thyme, and mint provide ongoing protection and diversity to your garden beds.
Attracting Beneficial Insects with Perennials
But did you know you can also attract and support beneficial insects by planting a variety of flowers in your yard?
Nectar and pollen are like a "come and get it" sign for good guys. Consider adding perennials like aster, bee balm, black-eyed susan, coreopsis, shasta daisies, echinacea, or yarrow to your yard.
PS. While I can’t find any sources that say so, I’ve noticed that my zinnia and marigold are magnets for Japanese beetles. I plant these AWAY from the veggies that the beetles like.
By choosing the right flowers, you can create a more resilient and productive garden in Denver's unique climate. These natural protectors not only reduce your workload but also enhance the overall health and yield of your garden. Embrace the flowers and watch your garden thrive!
Ready to find seeds for your Denver garden? Check out the local Colorado resources we suggest and get started on your gardening journey today!
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Meet the Gardener
I’m Elisa Mack - a mom and Denverite who went from being a green-ish thumb to a kitchen garden fanatic simply by dedicating myself to the study of all things Colorado gardening.
Landscapers don’t design. And nurseries don’t make house calls.
We take a more full-service approach, from designing your dream garden to keeping it beautiful year-round.
And as your coach, I’ll help eliminate the guesswork through every season, no matter your level of knowledge.
