Did you know there are many plants you can grow alongside your outdoor cannabis plants to improve your garden? It’s called companion planting, and it’s a grow style that’s utilized for a bunch of reasons, including to hide the smell of your cannabis, to add nutrients to the soil, and to act as a natural pesticide that repels creepy-crawly garden invaders. Check out some of the best plants to symbiotically enhance your cannabis garden right here.
Best Plants To Hide The Odor
Personally, we love the sweet and skunky smell of weed, but the neighbors might not feel the same way. Luckily, there are tons of herbs and flowers that can help mask the smell of weed.
Some of the best herbs to mask the smell include:
- Mint
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Other herbs, like basil and cilantro, also work well, but since they act particularly well as natural pest deterrents, they’ll get a special mention further down.
Flowers that emit highly aromatic oils are great to plant near cannabis due to their overpowering scents. However, we recommend that before planting, make sure no one in your home is allergic to these super-aromatic blooms.
Best flowers to mask the smell of your marijuana garden:
- Lavender
- Jasmine
- Lilac
If you’re serious about hiding an outdoor grow, you might want to consider surrounding your garden with southernwood, which is a perennial herb that can grow as much as five feet tall and two feet wide. This of course would help keep your cannabis obscured from prying eyes. Plus, the bushy southernwood has a strong lemony scent that can also help mask the smell of your grow.
The relaxing, strong scent of lavender will mask your cannabis.
Best Plants To Add Nutrients And Improve Your Harvest
Some plants add nutrients and minerals like nitrogen to the soil, while other plants can help increase the resin production of your buds.
For added nutrients:
- Alfalfa: Pulls nitrogen from the air and holds it in its roots. When rotated in with another crop like cannabis, the stored nitrogen in alfalfa is released and becomes available for the new crop to utilize. Alfalfa is also a good source of other minerals including potassium, sulfur and magnesium.
- Clover (white, red and crimson): Clovers pull up nutrients and minerals from deep in the ground.
- Borage: Also draws up trace nutrients from deep in the soil.
These plants are known to increased oil production in neighboring plants:
- Chamomile
- Stinging nettle
- Yarrow
White, red and crimson clover has a long taproot to draw minerals and nutrients from deep in the soil.
Best Plants To Use As Natural Pesticides
Planting certain crops to deter pests is an age-old farming practice, known as cover crops. The great thing about many of these plants is that they also have strong odors, so they deter insect pests, while also deterring nosy human pests.
Best herbs to keep pests away:
- Cilantro: Repels aphids, spider mites and potato beetles.
- Dill: Fends off spider mites.
- Peppermint: Withstands aphids.
- Mustard: Fights nematodes. Also acts as a natural biofumigate.
- Basil, chickweed, chives and sage: Resists aphids, spider mites, beetles and flies.
Best flowers and plants that act as a natural pesticide:
- Chrysanthemum: Repels nematodes. Also, high in pyrethrin, which causes nervous system damage to insects.
- Marigold: Bad news for whiteflies. Marigolds also release a strong scent that repels most insects.
- Shasta daisy and sunflower: Attracts beneficial insects that eat spider mites, fungus gnats, mites and scales.
- Garlic: Fends off attacks from aphids, Japanese beetles, root maggots and snails. Also acts as a natural fungicide.
- Foxglove and mullein: Attracts dicyphus, a bug that eats whiteflies, aphids and spider mites
- Yarrow: Attracts predatory wasps and ladybugs.
Armed with this information, there’s no reason not to get pot planting today. Happy spring!