Are Essential Oils Safe for Plants: The Right Ways to Use

Are essential oils safe for plants, is a valid question if you’re growing various indoor and outdoor plants in your garden. Essential oils deter various pests, protecting your plants from damage, and can also attract pollinators but can’t replace plant food or fertilizers.

So, what essential oils are good for indoor plants? Our gardening team will help you learn more about them and how they affect your garden.

Are Essential Oils Safe To be Used on Plants?

Yes, most essential oils are safe and can be sprayed on your plants’ leaves to protect them from pests. These essential oils repel pests and can help eliminate the existing ones, and at the same time, they won’t damage the foliage.

Different types of essential oils will work for specific problems. So, some are potent at repelling caterpillars and mites that damage the foliage. Others can fight off fungal infections that might kill your plants if left untreated.

– Functionality

The scent of essential oils determines how they work in your indoor or outdoor garden. Some oils have appealing scents that help attract pollinators to your garden, fertilizing your trees, shrubs, and flowers. Others have strong smells that help keep pests away.

For instance, some essential oils will also help attract pollinators, and this way, they will help fertilize your female and male plants, encouraging the growth of fruits and seeds that you can use to grow new plants. Equally, most essential oils can be safely used in your indoor and outdoor garden.

Moreover, essential oils can help repel bugs and insects, making your gardening setup more comfortable. However, do keep in mind that these oils aren’t food for your plants, which is why, they won’t provide your outdoor or indoor plants with essential nutrients, although some can encourage growth by keeping them healthy. They can save your ornamental and vegetable garden from harmful pests.

How To Use Essential Oils To Help Plants?

To use essential oils to help plants, you should get high-quality essential oils because the bad ones can do more harm than good. Then you should ensure that you mix it with some water to not strongly affect the plant and benefit it instead.

You should also dilute essential oils before using them on your plants; also, these oils can be too strong for your delicate plants and vegetables. Using them directly on the leaves can harm the foliage or increase sensitivity to sunlight; eventually scorching the leaves, try mixing them with water to prepare a plant spray is the best way to use them as strong oils harm plants.

In short, diffusing essential oils is an excellent way to relax the mood, promote wellness, and treat several health issues.

What Are the Best Essential Oils That Should Be Used on Plants?

The best essential oils that should be used on plants are neem oil, clove, tea tree, rosemary, and even some lavender oil. In addition to these, you must also use eucalyptus, peppermint, cedarwood oil, basil oil, and lastly, cinnamon oil.

These beneficial oils are crucial in organic gardening and can help you avoid harmful chemicals. They’re all natural and derived from plant and flower extracts, so they won’t harm your plants, damage the foliage, or stunt growth; moreover, they work for all types of plants.

Yet, using essential oils on edible plants and vegetables might only sometimes be safe. In this case, spraying the oils directly is not the best option. Instead, soak a cotton ball or cloth strip in essential oils and place it near the plant or on top of the soil.

– Neem

Neem oil is the number one essential oil that you can use to protect indoor and outdoor plants from pest attacks. It contains a chemical compound that messes up with insects’ hormones, preventing them from laying eggs. It also starves them to death.

You can use neem essential oil mixed with water to prepare a diluted spray that suffocates young living insects, especially aphids, upon contact. However, you need to use pure oil to make sure that it’s not dangerous to inhale, which is why you must be protected from its potential harms,

– Clove

The clove essential oil is efficient at dealing with various fungal diseases. It quickly breaks down organic matter, preventing fungal infestations from spreading to different parts of the plant, eventually killing it, so if you are wondering, What essential oils help plants grow, now you know that these are great to do so.

Moreover, the beneficial clove oil prevents harmful weeds from growing in your gardening, depriving your precious plants of nutrients. It can also deter rodents, aphids, wasps, and cockroaches.

– Tea Tree

Tea tree essential oil can break down fungal growth on the plant and soil. You can prepare a potent essential oil plant spray recipe by mixing two tablespoons of oil with two cups of water and using the spray every two or seven days to kill fungal spores.

The tea tree oil is too strong, so you need to dilute it before application. Don’t spray essential oils in at noon because the intense sunlight rays can scorch the leaves.

– Rosemary

The rosemary essential oil attracts various pollinators, especially butterflies. As a result, they’ll help fertilize the flowers and enhance the look of your pollinator garden. Together with this, its scent prevents your pet cat from urinating on your houseplants, as the urine contains ammonia that attracts different pests to your garden. The fragrant rosemary oil can be used on outdoor plants, controlling the number of larvae that can damage the foliage.

– Lavender

Lavender oil attracts pollinators to your garden, encouraging fertilization and filling your garden with beautiful bees and butterflies. For this purpose, you can soak a cotton ball in this fragrant oil and glue it to a stick. Then, you can insert the stick into the dirt of your houseplants or next to your shrubs and trees.

The lavender essential oil can also enhance plant growth by acting as a general bug-repellent that deters different pests away. Not only can these pests damage the foliage of your beautiful plants, but they can also transfer several pathogens that cause bacterial and fungal diseases.

– Eucalyptus

You may also be thinking, is eucalyptus oil safe for plants, and luckily, the answer is yes. This strong oil can deter several pests and act as a natural herbicide and insecticide. It naturally stops the growth of fungal spores keeping your plants healthy.

To prepare a spray, you can mix one-quarter of a teaspoon of this oil with a cup of water and shake well. It separates quickly, so you need to shake it every time you spray it on the plant’s leaves for pest control. It’s considered the best essential oil for scale on plants. You can also check out more ways to get rid of the scale on plants!

– Peppermint

Peppermint extract oil is one of the best organic methods to keep rats and squirrels away from your vegetable garden if these pests destroy your crops. You can also try to utilize it to stop these pests from getting into your house, as some may also be used as essential oil blends to help the plants repair. If you have a big squirrel problem, then you should follow our guide on how to keep the squirrels away from your plants!

The peppermint essential oil helps control the population of several bugs like aphids, mealybugs, plant lice, flies, caterpillars, and moths. Peppermint oil also solves the problem of fleas and lice if you have pets in the house because they would be repelling bugs quickly.

– Cedarwood

Cedarwood essential oil is a powerful pest repellent that helps fight off various pests and bugs. It’s a powerful bug deterrent for indoor and outdoor plants as it works against aphids, mealybugs, moths, lice, slugs, and weevils. Moreover, using it inside your house will help relieve tension, so this essential oil has a relaxing effect as well, so it’s an excellent choice for your indoor garden.

– Basil

Basil oil is a pollinator attractor. Its smell appeals to butterflies and bees, so this is why it will be a wonderful addition to your pollinator garden, especially when mixed with orange and sage oil. You can also prepare a basil essential oil spray by mixing it with water and using it to water the plants. The oil gets absorbed by the root system to enhance growth.

– Cinnamon

Cinnamon or cinnamon bark oil deters various pests like roaches, dust mites, and silverfish. You can also make a solution with it along using other oils like clove and lemon oil to prepare an antifungal spray.

Just mix 20 drops of this fragrant oil with two cups of water to prepare a spray. This spray can help if ants that hurt plants are present and becoming an issue in your garden.

Conclusion

Now you know how most essential oils are safe for plants as they enhance growth and get rid of annoying pests. So here’s what we looked through in this article.

• You shouldn’t spray oils directly on your plants but always dilute them first before application. Wrong application might harm your plants, but essential oils rarely kill your indoor or outdoor plants because they’re natural.
• Some fragrant essential oils like basil and lavender oils will attract pollinators to your garden.
• Oils like neem and cinnamon will help get rid of pests, as these essential oils can benefit your outdoor and indoor plants in multiple ways.
• Some oils, like rosemary, can enhance growth but can’t replace plant food.

You have read all the benefits and uses of these oils, as they can also greatly impact your indoor and outdoor plants, as you can use oil diffusers next to your houseplants to deter various pests and repel harmful insects.