# Garlic as a Companion Plant
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Roses
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Roses love garlic Roses are among the plants which benefit greatly from an association with garlic. When planted in proximity to fragrant rose bushes, smelly garlic excels in preventing the mildew and black spots which can damage these sublime flowers. Garlic also repels aphids, an insect pest known to leech the life from rose leaves and stems.
Root Vegetables
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Garlic plants, as well as other Alliums such as onions, can protect a garden from the ravages of marauding moles. This power is especially useful in protecting the health of root crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, carrots, radishes, turnips, rutabagas and parsnips. The roots of these carbohydrate-rich vegetables can be laid to waste by destructive moles. Garlic stops the subterranean diggers in their tracks and encourages them to burrow elsewhere.
Fruit Trees
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Garlic is an ally to peach trees. In addition to dispelling aphids and moles, the pungent scent of garlic halts the advances of fruit tree borers. This insect pest can turn a healthy, robust fruit tree into a sickly twig. For this reason, garlic planted in a ring around peach, apple, cherry, plum, apricot and nectarine trees will shield these luscious fruits from harm.
American Native Trees
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Garlic can protect the American ash tree from Japanese beetles. Garlic repels the Japanese beetle, an invasive species accidentally introduced to New Jersey in 1916. Since then the Japanese beetle has become one of the most destructive pests in America. Japanese beetles harm trees by gnawing away at their leaves, leaving useless skeletons behind. Tree species particularly affected by the Japanese beetle include the Japanese maple, Norway maple, American chestnut, American mountain ash, American elm, English elm, Lombardy poplar and black walnut. These trees would benefit by a patch of garlic planted near their roots.
Tomatoes
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Tomatoes benefit from being planted near garlic. Garlic plants planted among tomato vines aid in keeping tomatoes free from red spider mites, which can decimate the tomato plants' leaves and stems.
Lettuce
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Garlic keeps lettuce weevil-free. Garlic wards off vegetable weevils. These nasty insects can destroy leaf green vegetables like lettuce, and can also attack carrots, potatoes and tomatoes.
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