Repelling mosquitoes with native plants | Lifestyles

I tried rubbing leaves of our native beautyberry shrub onto my arms to repel mosquitoes, and it worked. Which is good because nothing else keeps the buzzing bug-banes from carrying us away … at least not for long.   

A bit of background: I was raised in the Delta when it was normal to ride bicycles behind “the fogging machine” — a truck-mounted sprayer spewing dense clouds of sweet-smelling vaporized DDT. Because my dad would tip the driver a dollar to back up to our yard and let it blow an extra few minutes, I’m so laced with it that it’s probably illegal to cremate me in California because my smoke is such an environmental hazard!

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