Aromatic Garden Herbs for Mosquito Season — What We Grow in Our Tallahassee Garden

Here in Tallahassee, Florida, mosquitoes are just a fact of summer life. So at InVine Botanicals, we lean into the aromatic herbs that gardeners have planted for generations to make a garden a little less inviting to them. Here are the ones we grow.

The idea is simple. Mosquitoes navigate by scent, and strongly aromatic plants put a lot of fragrance into the air. Gardeners have long planted these around patios and seating areas for exactly that reason.

First on the list, and one of our favorites, is lemon balm. Its leaves are rich in a compound called citronellal, the same family of fragrance found in citronella, the plant most people associate with summer evenings. Crush a lemon balm leaf and you get that bright, lemony scent instantly.

It's easy to grow, it spreads generously, and it's a classic patio-side herb. Next is basil. Its leaves are full of aromatic oils, and gardeners often tuck pots of it near doorways and outdoor tables for its strong, fresh fragrance.

We grow several kinds, including sweet basil and holy basil, both prized as much for their scent as for the kitchen. Then there are the mints, peppermint and spearmint. They're some of the most aromatic plants you can grow, and that powerful, cooling scent is exactly why they make the list.

Rosemary is another one. It grows into a dense, piney, fragrant shrub, and sprigs of it have traditionally been tossed onto a grill or a fire pit on summer nights for the aromatic smoke. It's tough, drought-friendly, and thrives in our Florida heat, so it earns its place in the garden many times over.

And don't overlook the flowers. Marigolds and their cousin calendula, with their bright golden blooms, are a long-standing companion plant in vegetable and herb gardens for their strong scent. Here's the important part to understand: this is about the living, growing plants and the fragrance they release into the air.

It's a gardening tradition, not a magic force field, and no single plant clears a yard on its own. What works is planting several of them together, generously, around the spaces where you actually sit. A thick, fragrant border of lemon balm, basil, mint, and rosemary makes for a wonderful garden either way.

And of course, growing these herbs is also the first step in everything we make. We harvest them by hand, the same plants that scent the garden. Lemon balm, basil, rosemary, and the rest come indoors fresh, get dried slowly, and are then slow-infused into oil.

Several of those very same garden herbs are the botanicals in our Bug Bite Balm. It's made with lemongrass, lemon balm, rosemary, and basil, all grown right here. So it's a hand-poured balm built around the aromatic garden herbs people most associate with warm summer evenings outdoors.

So if you want a more fragrant garden this summer, plant lemon balm, basil, mint, and rosemary where you sit. And you can find the balms we make from those same garden herbs at invinebotanicals dot com. Thanks for spending a little time in the garden with us.