How to prevents rats in your balcony garden – 8 Helpful Tips

Apart from the pests and insects in your garden that may harm the plants, you also need to take care of the rats. Yes, you heard us. Not everyone thinks about it in the first place, especially in a balcony garden.

Every house sometimes or the other has dealt with the rodents or the rats that have caused trouble, especially during the spring season. Let us see few tips to prevents rats in the balcony garden.

Gardens are known to be rats’ favorite spots to hide or better say create a home. You will easily find rats, mice, rodents, etc in your balcony garden pretty easily since they can easily get their everyday food supply.

The main reason that you need to get rid of the rats in your garden is that they can easily destroy the plants and create a mess. And you would really not want that to happen especially when you have just started working on it.

So, you do not need to worry about them anymore, since we have listed down some of the tips that you can apply to get rid of them at the earliest. Or at least keep them away from running anything, Here we go.

How to prevents rats in your balcony garden

Here are some tips that you can follow to prevents rats in the balcony garden or if you have already been infested you can follow as well to get rid of them for good.

Tip #1: Keep the Garden Clean and Tidy

Well, it may seem pretty basic to hear about it, but keeping your garden clean is the most essential thing. Remove any fallen leaves or fruits any so that rats are not attracted to them.

Moreover, since you are setting up your balcony garden in your home, you can get off any old or unwanted stuff from your balcony so that the rats do not make a home out of it. Any cardboard, cloth, or anything, the rats can eat them up and create a mess.

Tip #2: Use Peppermint Oil

A lot of people are not aware of this fact but Rats or any kind of rodents simply hate the smell of Peppermint oil. So, in such cases to keep your balcony gardens safe from rats, you can use it in multiple forms.

An important fact is that rats intend to walk in the corners of the walls so that they can escape easily. You can take some oil in cotton balls and keep them at such places so that they run away if at all they come even close to your garden.

Tip #3: Get Rid of any Water or Food resource

So, it is very clear if you are at all familiar that rats will look for any food or water resource in your balcony garden or anywhere.

In such cases, it is important that you get rid of any food particles or water resources away from your garden area.

If you filled up containers anywhere near it with water remove them immediately. Furthermore, if you have harvested the crops and made a heap of them, you need to contain it in proper places.

Tip #4: Do not feed birds or animals near your Garden

A lot of people have the habit to scatter down seeds or bird food in a special container or area for the birds to come and eat.

The same goes for animals too if you have a pet or anything. You need to take care of such a situation and stop feeding the birds for a certain period of time.

This will keep the rats away from the garden and look for bird food. A similar thing goes for the water as well that you may keep for the birds.

Tip #5: Skip the Mulching

Rats are attracted to the layer of material used while applying the process of mulching over the top of the soil in the garden.

Mulching can be a great deal especially during the extremes of temperature, but not a great thing for your balcony garden.

It can draw the rats towards the plants and they can destroy them within minutes. So, for a certain time or season, you can skip the process.

Tip #6: Start Growing Herbs

Another thing that can create a huge problem with the smell of herbs such as basil, echinacea, garlic, and thyme. You may not find anything pungent but the rats have a sensitive sense of smell and the experience with the herbs aren’t very good.

Create a small area of a garden with herbs in a container. Either it can be on the borders or simply anywhere there is space to keep the rats away.

Tip #7: Use Mouse Traps

The simplest of options that you can look to try is by using a mousetrap. You will have multiple options for traps in the market. It can be the glue sticky mat or the traditional one. It is being used for over centuries and works like a charm.

Simply keep the trap in a place where you feel the rats may always visit it. As soon as the rat moves around the trap, take it in so that it does not escape anytime soon.

Tip #8: Buy a Cat

This may sound too out there, but you can always buy a cat. Well, cats are amazing animals, they love humans and if you wanted a pet, this could be your chance to get one.

You may have seen Tom and Jerry while you were a child? It is pretty much understood that rats do hate Cats and having one in your home could be the best thing and you do not need to put in a lot of effort otherwise.

Read Best tricks and tips to optimally grow and care Marigold plant

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What smell do rats hate the most?

There are certain smells that rats or rodents cannot stand at all. Well, we do have mentioned peppermint oil in our list above. We also have some other options if the peppermint oil is not available for you to use.

Such as the smell of chemicals, predators, rodent repellents, Eucalyptus, Citronella, etc.

While some types of rodents may or may not be affected by it as it depends on the areas you live in.

2. What plants do rats not like?

You may not have come across the fact that there are certain kinds of plants that rats cannot seem to bear at all in the garden. Some of them being Marigolds, Rosemary, Peppermint, Lavender, Onions, Grape Hyacinth, Garlic, Daffodils, etc.

These plants may have a smell that could drive away from the rats. Growing them in your balcony garden can be a huge benefit.

3. Do rats eat plants?

Rats may or may not eat your houseplants. They are fond of certain fruits, seeds, vegetables, etc but if you have a garden with herbs or flowers then you do not need to worry a lot.

Furthermore, it can still be dangerous since they tend to loosen up the soil by leaving the bits of food on the soil. So, no matter what it is needed to get rid of rats or rodents from the balcony garden.

You may like the following gardening articles:

• 8 Best flower plants for balcony garden
• 10 best plants for sunny balcony garden
• 13 Best balcony garden plants
• Growing tomatoes on balcony Garden
• Best Pots for Balcony Gardening

Final Thoughts

So, here are some of the major tips and tricks that you can look over to make sure there are no rats in your garden. You can try them out and definitely the rats will no longer be seen in your balcony garden anytime soon.

No matter what, just keep it clean and also do not feed the birds for at least a while. Many users do experience the infestation of rats in their homes as well and all these can work there as well.

If at all you feel that things are going out of hand for you and there is nothing you can do. It is better to call the experts and let them handle this. They tend to spray some chemicals that will surely draw all the insects, rats, rodents, etc out of the house in no time.

However, it is recommended that you try all of this at first and then move on to something else. I hope these few tips will help to prevent rats in balcony garden.