Several herbs, flowers, and shrubs produce strong scents or bitter compounds that grasshoppers avoid. Planting them strategically around your garden can reduce feeding damage on vulnerable crops like lettuce, beans, corn, and young greens. No single plant creates a perfect barrier, but combining repellent species with other management tactics gives you real protection.
Herbs That Grasshoppers Avoid
Aromatic herbs are some of the most effective grasshopper deterrents because they’re loaded with volatile oils and bitter-tasting compounds. The strongest options include garlic, onion, chives, sage, basil, rosemary, common thyme, catnip, and lemongrass. These plants produce high concentrations of secondary metabolites, including tannins, alkaloids, and terpenoids, that create dietary stress for grasshoppers. When grasshoppers feed on plants rich in these compounds, it suppresses their growth and disrupts their metabolism, which is why they learn to avoid these species altogether.
English lavender and rosemary are particularly useful because they’re perennials in most warm climates, giving you year-round coverage without replanting. Sage performs double duty: both common culinary sage and Mexican bush sage have been observed to be among the plants grasshoppers least prefer in field observations conducted by Texas extension horticulturists. Artemisia, the genus that includes wormwood and mugwort, is another plant grasshoppers consistently pass over.
Flowers and Shrubs That Deter Grasshoppers
If you want repellent plants that also look good in a landscape, marigolds are the classic choice. They produce a pungent scent from their foliage and flowers that many chewing insects dislike. Beyond marigolds, forsythia, crepe myrtle, juniper, Russian sage, goldenrod, common lilac, verbena (vervain), and passion vine all rank among documented grasshopper-resistant species.
These shrubs and perennials work best when planted along the edges of your property or garden beds, where grasshoppers typically enter from surrounding fields or wild areas. Juniper and forsythia are large enough to form a genuine physical and olfactory barrier along a fence line or garden border.
Why These Plants Work
Plants defend themselves against insect herbivores in two ways: built-in defenses like tough leaves and low nutritional value, and chemical defenses they produce in response to being chewed on. The chemical defenses are the ones that matter most for repelling grasshoppers. When a plant is high in secondary metabolites like terpenoids, phenols, and alkaloids, grasshoppers that feed on it experience suppressed growth. Research published in Frontiers in Physiology found that grasshoppers feeding on plants with high secondary metabolite levels showed downregulated insulin-like signaling pathways, essentially stunting their development and pushing them to migrate elsewhere in search of better food.
This is why aromatic herbs are so effective. The same oils that give rosemary, thyme, and lavender their strong scent are terpenoid compounds that grasshoppers find unpalatable. Garlic and other alliums produce sulfur-containing compounds that serve the same purpose. The stronger the smell to your nose, the more likely the plant is producing chemicals grasshoppers want to avoid.
Where to Plant for Maximum Protection
The most common mistake is scattering repellent plants randomly throughout a garden. Instead, think in terms of borders. Grasshoppers typically migrate into gardens from surrounding dry grassland, roadsides, or fallow fields. Concentrate your repellent herbs and shrubs along the edges where grasshoppers are most likely to arrive.
Interplanting also helps. Tuck basil, chives, or garlic between rows of susceptible crops like lettuce, beans, carrots, and corn. Young green plants are grasshopper favorites, so surrounding them with strongly scented companions can redirect feeding. In flower beds, border your most vulnerable ornamentals with marigolds, lavender, or verbena.
One important nuance from UC’s Integrated Pest Management program: a border of tall, lush green grass around the outside of your garden can actually function as a trap crop, attracting grasshoppers to the perimeter and diverting them from your vegetables. If you use this strategy, keep the trap strip green and unmowed. Letting it dry out or cutting it short will push grasshoppers directly into your garden beds.
What Grasshoppers Target Most
Knowing what grasshoppers prefer helps you decide where to focus your repellent planting. In home gardens, they go after lettuce, beans, carrots, corn, and flowers first. They favor young, tender green growth over mature or woody plants. In agricultural settings, alfalfa, wheat, soybeans, corn, sugarbeets, and sunflowers take the heaviest losses. Grasshoppers will clip wheat stems and knock entire seed heads to the ground, strip alfalfa leaves down to bare stems, and destroy sunflower blossoms before seeds develop.
Early-planted crops are especially vulnerable because they emerge while grasshopper populations are still actively feeding and growing. If you’re planting spring vegetables in an area with a known grasshopper problem, that’s where your repellent herb borders matter most.
Combining Repellent Plants With Other Tactics
Repellent plants reduce grasshopper pressure, but during heavy infestation years, they won’t stop every insect. Layering strategies makes a real difference.
- Garlic or hot pepper spray: Homemade sprays applied directly to vulnerable plants add another layer of scent-based deterrence. These need reapplication after rain.
- Floating row covers: Lightweight fabric draped over young seedlings physically blocks grasshoppers from reaching plants during the most vulnerable growth stages.
- Diatomaceous earth or kaolin clay: Dusted on leaves, these create a physical barrier that discourages feeding. Diatomaceous earth also damages the insects’ exoskeletons.
- Natural pathogens: A biological control product containing Nosema locustae, a naturally occurring grasshopper disease, can be applied in early spring when nymphs are small. It must be consumed by young grasshoppers to be effective, so timing matters.
- Encouraging predators: Birds, spiders, and ground beetles all eat grasshoppers. Providing habitat for these predators, like birdhouses, ground cover, and avoiding broad-spectrum pesticides, keeps natural populations in check.
The most effective grasshopper management pairs repellent planting with at least one or two of these additional methods. In mild years, a well-placed border of garlic, lavender, and marigolds may be all you need. In outbreak years, when grasshopper populations explode and they’ll eat nearly anything, physical barriers and biological controls become essential backup.