Apart from using for clothes and cleaning purposes but have you ever gave a thought about using detergents in your garden yet? If you haven’t, this article today has everything on garden safe detergent uses for plants and more! Although it might sound absurd at first, there are many uses of detergents for your plants that you can try in your garden! To know how they are, let’s check them out with us!
Eliminate pesky weeds, control molds, trap fruit flies, repel deer, kill bugs, …these are great uses of detergents that you will never think about. If you are a garden lover, you should save these tips for your garden. The simple reason, using detergent is one of the safe, natural, and effective ways. And you can save a lot of money on buying chemical fertilizers or buying pesticides to kill harmful insects!
#1 Eliminate Pesky Weeds
That bottle of detergent is one of the best weed management solutions when you need it! Simply to make, a combination containing half a cup salt, one-gallon vinegar, and a few spurts of laundry/dishwashing detergent can rapidly destroy invasive weeds within a span of 2-3 hours!
#2 Control Molds
The signs of mildew can ruin your healthy plants in your garden. Easy to repel them with the mixture here. One spoonful baking soda, half a spoon liquid soap, a gallon of water. Water your plants well before spraying this solution over the affected area. Also, try the Garden Safe Detergent on one leaf before spraying it on all leaves of the plant.
#3 Promote Growth of Rose Plants
Roses are difficult to maintain sometimes, especially when it comes to the blossoms. One way to ensure your rose bushes are getting the care they need is by using a diluted detergent spray on the foliage every once in a while. To make you will need: Two and a half spoon of vegetable oil, two and a half spoon of dish soap (Without degreasers, perfumes, and dye), a gallon of distilled water. Mix them well and spray over the bush.
#4 Trap Fruit Flies
Diluted liquid soap or dishwashing detergent is a low-cost tool that doesn’t harm your precious plants and still manages to trap the flies effectively. Mix 6-8 drops of detergent into a bowl containing white vinegar and place it in your garden. The unmistakable smell of vinegar will attract the flies but the soapy solution will prevent them from flying away.
#5 Establishing New Areas
The main challenge of establishing new areas in the garden lies in mixing the planting medium with water. This is especially true for those times when you’re working with peat moss or new soil. The latter often has a hard surface that tends to resist water. To do away with this obstacle: Add one-two drops of laundry detergent or liquid dish soap to the water. Dilute detergent mixture further and then apply it to the new soil.
#6 Watering the Lawn
Grass develops an unsightly brown hue when left too dry. If a lawn is not dethatched adequately, the surface turns hard and impenetrable. Hence, water is not capable of permeating deep down into the soil to access the grassroots and nourishing them. Here’s where detergent can help: Add it up to half or full teaspoon per gallon of water and mix it in a hand sprayer to treat your lawn. The surfactant property of detergent acts to break down surface tension on the grass, allowing the water to percolate down the most resistant of soils and reach the roots.
#7 As a Spreader/Sticker
Using a laundry detergent or liquid dish soap is a smart way to improve the performance of spray-on disease solutions. When mixed with fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides, the mild detergent or dish soap enables the chemicals to adhere and penetrate the grass/soil better. You should mix 4-5 drops of liquid soap/detergent to the fertilizer before applying it.
#8 Repel Deer
Deers can be a major threat to your garden bed. They gnaw away at your foliage and trample grass. Keep a bowl of any strong smelling detergent mixed with water in the center spot near vulnerable trees and shrubs. The strong fragrance of the detergent offends the deer’s dainty sense of smell and keeps them away from that plant.
#9 Kill Bugs
Dishwashing liquid is a low-cost alternative to costlier, chemical insecticides. It can be used to deal with non-serious infestations of common garden pests such as aphids, mealybugs, spiders mites, and thrips.
#10 Stop Slugs and Snails
After a downpour, gently pick off the slugs and snails from your plants and drop them into a bucket of detergent and water. The soapy mixture will dissolve the membranes of the insects, and disrupt their osmotic balance, causing them to die eventually. For best results, do this every morning.
#11 Kill Ants and Roaches
There is no need to use toxic chemicals to eliminate ants and roaches from your favorite plants. Just mix some detergent and water in a spray bottle, then shake well to mix and spray it instantly on that creepy crawlies to get rid of them.
