With so many of us attempting a more sustainable and less harmful way of life, it is unsurprising that toxic treatments are ones we accept only as a last resort. It is the same with treating woodworm.
While we all recognise an infestation of furniture beetles can be damaging to our property or furniture, we would rather treat the problem in an earth-friendly way.
Perhaps that’s why we’ve recently been much more inclined to look to our forebears for natural solutions to age-old problems.
In doing so we might avoid more modern but more environmentally-unfriendly treatments and this applies to our quest for woodworm solutions.
Can You Treat Woodworm With Lavender?
Lavender is a herb that has long been associated with healing and well-being in complementary medicine. It’s also well-known in its domestic application as a repellent for moths, flies, fleas and mosquitoes.
And to a certain extent, science does back up the claims that herbal remedies do repel insects and this includes furniture beetles – but there is a catch.
Most insects are attracted to their food by its scent. This applies to the common furniture beetle just as much as moths, mosquitoes or spiders, except that rather than having living victims, furniture beetles are attracted by the smell of timber.
The key to remaining insect-free is to mask the smell of the attractor with the pungent smell of oil that is held within the flowers and foliage of herbs such as lavender.
This means, in theory, that lavender oil can prevent furniture beetles from recognising the scent of wood and they fly off to find a suitable egg-laying site elsewhere. However, there are two major problems:
1. To achieve a level of scent coverage sufficient to prevent a furniture beetle from recognising the underlying scent of timber, would require quite a lot of essential oil. Essential oils are expensive and therefore this is not necessarily a cost-effective option.
But I would recommend this as its a good price:
If the item you are treating is small then this may be a reasonable preventative measure but if the timbers are structural or the furniture is larger, it would be an incredibly costly and lengthy preventative measure to undertake.
2. Over time the scent of essential oils fades. Frequent reapplication would be necessary to make sure the scent of the lavender oil continued to mask that of the timber.
There is no hard and fast rule about when reapplication should occur either – you’ll just have to play it by ear (or rather ‘nose’). A burdensome, expensive and not to say an imprecise method of prevention.
What Are The Benefits of Using Lavender Oil to Prevent Woodworm?
If you are committed to sustainability then this is certainly an option to consider as long as you are aware that lavender is not a treatment for infected wood.
It does not kill furniture beetles or their larvae, merely masks the smell of their preferred breeding ground.
Non Toxic Woodworm Treatment
But if you are willing to put in the hard work and take the dent in your wallet then lavender essential oil will be a non-toxic and much more earth-friendly option for preventing woodworm than chemical treatments.
