Does the lavender plant or its essential oil repel snakes in any way?
People have had a lot of encounters with snakes. Such encounters may be within living spaces such as homes or outdoors. It’s even scarier to find snakes indoors.
For a lot of people, getting rid of snakes is something they cannot handle.
The immediate action would be to find a way to repel these reptiles.
Using Lavender For Snake Control
This is what most of our discussion will focus on. How do you go about repelling snakes? Does lavender work for snakes?
For a lot of people, any repellent method will serve for as long as it keeps snakes out of their property.
With this said, let’s find out whether lavender repellent treatments can be relied upon.
The Many Uses of Lavender
Lavender is known to have wide applications ranging from aromatic uses, serving as a stress reliever, for its culinary benefits, and also as a pest repellent. These are broad categories with many other uses.
It’s the pest repellent effect of lavender we’re more concerned about.
Will Lavender Keep Snakes at Bay?
A lot has been said about the snake repellent effect of lavender.
While there are lots of claims about its efficacy, not much concrete proof exists in terms of scientific studies about lavender and its repellent effect.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a wide consensus about lavender’s repellent effect.
Most of these claims consist of anecdotal evidence where snake barriers have been put in place by merely growing lavender plants or spraying lavender oil.
Snakes are repelled by their strong scent which permeates your surroundings.
You Shouldn’t Count on It
When it comes to keeping snakes at bay, you’ll need to adopt reliable repellent strategies that work. With lavender, none of that is guaranteed.
In other words, lavender does little, if anything at all to repel snakes. Most of the claims about its repellent effect come from the personal accounts of several people.
There are also many that counter such claims saying treatments applied either showed little or no results at all. These reasons aren’t sufficient enough to guarantee results.
Nevertheless, there’s no harm in trying.
While this is true, the chances of getting results are pretty slim.
Why Lavender is thought to Have Snake Repellent Effect
To apply any pest treatment, it’s necessary to first understand how it repels or acts on targeted pests. For snakes, lavender is believed to have a repellent effect due to the strong scent of the plant as well as its oil.
Snakes on the other hand are known to have an excellent sense of smell.
They use such capabilities to sense the presence of prey or danger. As such, it’s easy to see why lavender will be thought of as a snake repellent.
Its scent permeates your surroundings which are detested by snakes and other pests. Such an overpowering scent of vinegar drives away snakes.
In reality, there’s a 50-50 chance that lavender will work or won’t. Plus, snakes might react differently to lavender. You might have snakes nesting around your property despite having lavender plants growing around.
When Lavender Treatments Fail
It’s common to find or hear stories about ineffective lavender treatments for snakes. Here, lavender oil or the plant might have been used with little to no results to show.
If this applies to your situation, then it’s best to look for reliable snake repellent alternatives.
Solutions include growing snake repellent plants that work and also focusing on possible snake attractions within your surroundings. Consider calling for professional control and removal.
The goal will be to remove such attractions. This, coupled with any other treatment method tends to provide better repellent results.
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Growing Snake Repellent Plants
When lavender treatments fail, you can count on other plants to provide the snake repellent effect you need. Many plants fall into this category.
They include the West Indian lemongrass plant, marigold, the snake plant, mugwort, garlic & onion, Indian snakeroot, and society garlic.
Other plants to grow for snake control include tobacco, king of bitters, kaffir-limes, clove basil, cactus, Jimsonweed, skunk garbage, and wormwood.
These plants have shown promising signs of repelling snakes. Plus, they can be potted for easy movement. Potted plants can also be placed indoors to serve as deterrence.
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Removing or Eliminating Snake Attractions
When snakes come around, the likelihood of being attracted to your surroundings by favorable conditions is quite high. There are multiple attractions to snakes you might have around your home.
Most of the time, homeowners are oblivious to the fact that their actions could be contributing to snake presence.
If you have a high population of rodents and birds around your home, then chances are that you could be attracting snakes. These are ready prey for snake sand will eventually draw snakes sooner or later.
Overgrown grasses and shrubs could also provide ample hiding spots for these reptiles.
When there’s unrestricted access to your yard, it could be a ready attraction for snakes. These reptiles come in unhindered.
What more? Cool and damp places around your yard or home will make snakes come around. The same applies to water sources.
Composting close to your home is a bad idea as it also serves as an attraction to snakes. So also is leaving out dog and cat food outside. All of these are common practices that easily attract snakes to your surroundings.
You’ll need to immediately make the necessary adjustment to make your surroundings less inviting to these reptiles.
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Professional Control and Removal
The most comprehensive way to deal with a snake problem apart from prevention is by calling for professional help. Wildlife control specialists not only offer removal services but also provide you with tips on how to prevent future snake presence.
Such tips must be taken seriously. Failure to do that will most certainly result in future reoccurrence.
There are Benefits to Having Snakes Around
While this is the last thing most people will want to hear, the fact remains that snakes have certain benefits. Snakes help in keeping the number of prey down.
Prey like rodents also does a lot of damage to property.
Having predator snakes around helps keep rodent populations in check.
Lavender isn’t a reliable snake repellent as it offers little to no help in keeping snakes at bay. To have any real impact on snake presence you’ll need to do a lot more than relying on lavender treatments.
We’ve provided several reliable alternative remedies to snake presence.