Growing cannabis is a rewarding and pleasurable experience if you follow the proper steps. There are plenty of guides and instructions available online, but many of them don’t talk about cannabis companion plants.
These help you grow cannabis successfully by increasing the vitality of your plants, deflecting pests, and attracting beneficial insects to your garden. Without them, you’ll still be able to grow good weed, but it will take more of your time to maintain the weed. You’ll need to be watching your garden in case pests appear, and you’ll have to focus on the soil surrounding your marijuana more.
The best companion plants for cannabis have benefits of their own, in addition to the effects they have on cannabis plants. These benefits can include solidifying the soil, making pleasant teas, and boosting the biodiversity of your grow space.
In this guide, we’re going to cover sixteen marijuana companion plants so that you can decide which ones will suit your garden the most.
The 16 Best Plants to Grow with Cannabis
Each of these plants has been chosen because of the qualities they bring to your garden and for no other reason. Some of them are similar, but they all have significant differences, which means you’ll have a lot of flexibility. The plants we’re going to cover are:
- Cerastium
- Sunflower
- Dill
- Lavender
- Marigold
- Chamomile
- Alfalfa
- Red Clover
- White Clover
- Yarrow
- Peppermint
- Coriander
- Chervil
- Sweet Basil
- Borage
- Lemon Balm
Cerastium
Cerastium is one of the best companion plants for cannabis because of the way it grows. Unlike other plants, which grow upwards, cerastium grows horizontally. That means it covers the surface of the soil where you’ve planted marijuana. This prevents moisture from evaporating and absorbs the sun’s UV rays, ensuring they don’t penetrate the soil. This creates a healthy growing environment for the roots of your marijuana.
To make the best of cerastium, plant it early in the year, and spread the seeds across your grow area. It might be tempting to cover them up, but you don’t need to do this. Instead, you can just lay them across the top of the soil. They must get enough light and that the soil drains well. South-facing cerastium plants also typically do better.
Cannabis is known for thriving in a neutral pH, but cerastium is more flexible. It takes them around 21 days to germinate fully, and the plants should be kept a fair distance apart from each other. It will take a further 40 days for the plants to finish growing. Cerastium is an excellent pick if you have a large grow area and want a companion plant to cover it in full.
Sunflowers
Sunflowers are typically associated with summertime and are a classic plant to have in your garden. They’re also great plants to grow with cannabis. Sunflowers have a pleasing appearance and grow tall. They serve your cannabis by attracting the pests that would otherwise munch away on your leaves. These include snails, whiteflies, slugs, and aphids.
Sunflower seeds react best when immediately planted in soil with good drainage that’s relatively isolated. That’s because high winds are a bad idea for sunflowers as they can knock them down. Sunflowers have a hidden benefit that only becomes apparent as they grow.
They prevent plants from growing that are close to them, which allows them to dominate the land. That can be beneficial for plants that you don’t want, but it should give you pause for thought before you place them too close to your cannabis plants.
That’s also why keeping them at a distance of 60cm from each other is worthwhile. When it comes to flowering, sunflowers can take 95 days, so you’ll need a lot of patience. Eventually, the sunflower heads will fill with seeds. Birds will eat these, as well as any insects they find along the way.
Dill
Unlike some of the other marijuana companion plants in this list, dill is a herb. That means it has uses beyond aiding your cannabis growing endeavors. You can put it into drinks or meals and use it for cooking.
But the focus of this guide is how plants help with cannabis. Dill will repel certain species of invasive pests that would otherwise enjoy eating your cannabis. These include spider mites and caterpillars. If you’re interested in having a beautiful garden, you’ll be pleased to know that dill and cannabis often suit each other visually.
Planting dill is best done at the earliest time possible once winter has finished. The seeds should be buried just under the soil and kept some distance apart if the temperatures are low. If the climate is more suitable for marijuana growth, you can put the dill into the compost.
To grow dill properly, you’ll want plenty of sunlight and moisture. Soil that’s dry causes dill to flower prematurely as a result of the stresses this environment places on it, so you should be careful about the soil. It’s fine to plant dill adjacent to your cannabis, as there won’t be adverse effects. You can harvest the dill after almost two months.
Lavender
A famous plant, lavender might seem like a surprise choice for a list of cannabis companion plants, but there’s a reason it makes the shortlist. Lavender has a tasty scent that’s pleasing to humans but repulsive to pests. It also has radiant purple colors that ensure it looks pleasant in every garden.
Pests will be much less likely to sit on your cannabis and interfere with it if lavender is nearby, but you’ll also have an added advantage. Pollinators like bees will come and visit your garden, bringing in benefits you might not have expected.
Lavender is best grown in warm climates but can also be planted where temperatures aren’t as warm. You should plant it using vermiculite-infused compost to get the best results, and you’ll need to wait three weeks for germination to finish. You can then plant the lavender directly into the soil.
Once you’ve finished growing your marijuana, the lavender flower heads can be gathered up and used to produce lavender tea. That means you can make plenty of the tea yourself, invite friends around, and maybe even sell some of the lavender tea bundled together with the weed you’ve grown.
Marigold
Marigold is one of the more colorful cannabis companion plants, with bright flowers that you can’t fail to miss. When you plant them in your garden, they’ll seem like they’re just decorative. So if you’re trying to be discreet about growing cannabis, then these are a good choice. They’re also a good choice if your garden’s color scheme and design are essential to you.
But they also have benefits for your cannabis plants. The flowers attract beneficial bugs, and the scent repels pests. Marigolds will flower every year, and they’ll do well until winter begins. You can make your marigolds perform better by using healthy soil.
You can plant the marigold adjacent to your cannabis without any problems, but it’s good to keep a small distance between the plants. Marigolds do best when they have regular sunlight, and they tend to stay below plant canopies.
If you deadhead the marigolds, you’ll get more flowers in the following year, and you can use those flowers for cosmetics. Make sure that when you’re planting your marigolds, they’re not too far away from the cannabis. Otherwise, they won’t be close enough to ward away pests and attract beneficial insects.
Chamomile
Chamomile is most famous for the tea of the same name, but it’s also grown in gardens. It makes a good choice as one of the companion plants for cannabis because it looks nice and is easy to grow. If you’ve not grown marijuana for long, that makes chamomile a good choice.
Chamomile is an annual plant, so you won’t have to plant more of it once you’ve added as much as you like to your garden. Once it matures, it will distract flies and mosquitoes, as well as helping other plants create essential oils and improve their turgidity. When choosing locations for your chamomile, placing it alongside the edges of your garden is the best choice. You can also place it around a greenhouse if you’re growing your marijuana there.
Soil conditions for chamomile should include good drainage, as well as plenty of sunlight on the surface. You can let the plants grow for a month, but then they should be moved apart. You can use any that’s still available at the end of the growing season to make chamomile tea. Alternatively, it makes a good skin wash too, although you’ll need to do some research on the precise recipe for that.
Alfalfa
One of the best companion plants for cannabis is alfalfa. You may have heard of it but not known what it’s best used for. The plant itself may not seem remarkable, but it has significant effects on the soil. You can use alfalfa to encourage nitrogen absorption. Too much of it can harm your cannabis plants, but it’s still necessary.
You can also combine alfalfa with rhizobia bacteria which ensures the nitrogen is made use of. Alfalfa also has benefits beyond nitrogen absorption. It can help hydrate your plants and ensures turgidity is maintained. You’ll also find that the soil is stabilized too, so there isn’t much to dislike about alfalfa.
One thing to keep in mind with alfalfa is that it grows fast and has an extensive root network. That means you don’t need to plant the seeds very deeply. However, they should be kept apart because of the amount of space required by the roots.
When growing alfalfa, it’s best to do so where it’s warmer. If you have a very hot climate, that’s not a problem because the alfalfa is resistant to drought. If the soil is slightly acidic, that will also help with growing the alfalfa. Once you’ve finished growing cannabis, you can use the sprouts from the alfalfa to help with vitamins and minerals in your diet.
Red Clover
Red clover boosts the nitrogen levels in your soil and ensures your cannabis plants are as healthy as possible. That makes it an excellent marijuana companion plant. As is the case with alfalfa, you should use rhizobia bacteria to encourage nitrogen absorption. It’s essential not to oversupply your plants with nitrogen, so it’s best not to surround them with red clover plants.
However, some nearby shouldn’t cause any problems and should help your plants. The red flowers will attract pollinators, which will benefit the rest of your garden. Seeds for red clover should be planted just beneath the soil and only a small distance apart. They should be placed in the full sun and ideally around the borders of your garden. Red clover is quite similar to white clover, which we’ll discuss in the next section.
White Clover
The alternative to red clover is white clover. It’s pretty similar to red clover, and we’ll run through its benefits here. It will resist pests and help improve the quality of your soil. In particular, it will increase the nitrogen levels in the soil and add moisture as well. To ensure it has the most beneficial effect for your cannabis, plant it along the base of your plants.
It’s easy to grow, so you won’t need to follow complicated instructions to get good results. It will also help control the spread of weeds in your garden, ruling out the chances of them taking over the grounds and cutting off resources for your cannabis plants. It performs best when planted in springtime and in acidic soil.
The soil should have enough water to sustain the white clover. As for the plant itself, it has a sweet scent and will attract beneficial insects like butterflies and bees. The leaves and flowers of white clover can also be put into food recipes after the growing season has finished.
That makes white clover a particularly valuable choice among cannabis companion plants, and if you want to make things even better, you can combine it with red clover.
Yarrow
Yarrow makes another excellent choice among plants to grow with cannabis because it’s simple and stylish. It’s also another plant that has positive effects on plants that are near it. For example, it will encourage essential oil production, which is something chamomile does too. If that’s an important priority for you, and you don’t want to have chamomile, yarrow is a great alternative.
Because of its effects on essential oils, it’s an excellent way to help cannabis plants grow even when conditions aren’t as good as you’d like. It also helps to repel aphids by attracting bugs that eat them, like ladybugs. That makes them valuable for ensuring your cannabis plants don’t get eaten.
Yarrow seeds prefer drier climates with some well-drained soil, and that’s because they don’t need a large amount of water. They do need space, and it’s essential to give them that during the three weeks it will take for germination to complete. Yarrow tea can be made with any parts of the plants left at the end of the growing season. Yarrow is beneficial for cannabis and can be planted adjacent to it without a great deal of distance.
Peppermint
Peppermint is probably one of the most well-known marijuana companion plants on our list because it can be made into tea and mints. It’s also beneficial to cannabis, and the reason it does that is that many pests hate the smell that we appreciate so much. That makes it a win-win for your cannabis plants and humans too.
If you’re interested in masking the scent of cannabis because you don’t want others to know you’re growing it, then you’ll find peppermint is a good option. Another good point in favor of peppermint is the fact it grows very fast. You won’t have to wait long for it to be ready.
But that does mean you should contain the peppermint as it grows. Otherwise, it can spread and cover your garden. If you do this, it won’t be a problem that you’re growing less peppermint because you can get more than one harvest from it as the cannabis is growing.
Another benefit of peppermint is that you can grow it in the shade or the sun, and it won’t have a negative effect either way. Germination takes a little over two weeks, and the plants will repeatedly flower each year, so you’ll have more than enough for mints or tea.
Coriander
Coriander can be used for many things, including warding off pests. Specifically, spider mites, potato beetles, and aphids are repelled by it. That will help protect your cannabis as well as your other plants. It will entice parasitic wasps to come to your garden, which will kill any small bugs that remain.
You’ll need to consider where to put your coriander because it prefers to stay in the same place it was originally planted in. Therefore you should know where you’re going to plant your weed first. The best time of the year to plant it is in the early summer, and it will take up to three weeks to germinate. The entire growing process for coriander takes 75 days, after which you can harvest it and use it in the food you’re preparing.
It’s best to keep each coriander plant separate from others and keep them in roughly the same area in which you’re planting your cannabis. You can put them in different containers if your growing area is smaller and your space is restricted. When you’re planting the seeds, they should be placed 1cm beneath the soil.
Chervil
Chervil is a common accompaniment for plenty of recipes, and it also helps to repel insects that would otherwise compromise your weed. It’s very effective at deflecting aphids, which would otherwise eat your cannabis plants. That’s why we believe it’s one of the marijuana companion plants worth including on this list.
Spring is the right time to plant chervil, and they’ll germinate within seven days. You can spread out the chervil to get better results, and a distance of 30cm is preferable. It needs moisture to grow but doesn’t prefer shade or sun, so you can grow it in either the shade or the sunlight.
Chervil is known as self-seeding, unlike some of the best companion plants for cannabis that we’ve included in this list. That enables the plant to spread fast, and if you’re not careful, it can dominate your garden. Therefore, you need to plant it carefully and take off the flower heads. It can be placed alongside your cannabis or in a greenhouse.
As long as your containers are suitable, then the chervil will thrive without taking over your garden, and you can position as much of it as you need as close to your cannabis plants as you think is best.
Sweet Basil
Sweet basil is a herb that many people have heard of, and it can go into a lot of different meals. However, it also serves as a great companion plant for cannabis. It has a strong scent that helps you recognize it, and it will repel a selection of pests because of this scent.
The scent will also draw in some bugs that will help your garden and improve its biodiversity. Like many of the other cannabis companion plants we’ve covered, you’ll want to spread out the sweet basil plants and place them in the sun. If you can, you should ensure the soil is somewhat acidic and that it doesn’t rain too frequently.
You can increase their growth by topping them and regularly harvesting from them. You can also experiment with combining dill and sweet basil. Some growers believe that if you do this, the terpene levels of cannabis are increased. You can test this to see whether it proves true in your case. Any sweet basil left over at the end of your cannabis growing can then be added to recipes.
Borage
Borage is an excellent choice for a cannabis companion plant because it combines rich blue blossoms with attracting bees, which are excellent pollinators. It’s often a challenge to attract bees to your garden, but with plenty of borage, you’ll find it’s much more manageable. Borage also contains a good mixture of nutrients that can benefit both humans and cannabis.
Not many of the plants we’ve covered here attract bees exclusively, so borage stands out for that advantage. You can also use the borage once you’ve finished the growing season by using the leftovers as mulch or by composting it. Some of the minerals it contains include calcium and potassium, which help your cannabis thrive.
Borage requires full sunlight, so you’ll need to keep this in mind when you’re planting it. After you’ve chosen where to plant your borage, you should keep in mind that it needs space. You can allocate 30cm between each plant to get good results.
Another aspect to consider with borage is the fact that you’ll need to water it frequently. But you can use the leaves from the plant to make drinks, and they’ll taste like cucumbers.
Lemon Balm
The final plant on our list is lemon balm, and it grows annually, making it another good choice if you don’t want to plant more seeds every year. It will even last under the ground when it’s cold, ready to come back as soon as the temperature increases.
It’s one of the best choices for a marijuana companion plant because it diverts mosquitoes from your garden while attracting pollinators. The result is that your garden becomes a more pleasant environment for you and the cannabis plants you’re growing. It’s another plant that can grow fast, so you should keep it in containers.
It’s also worth spreading the seeds out across a wide area and covering them over with compost. Lemon balm can grow in the sun or in the shade. If you want them to grow faster, make sure you remove the flowers that have died after the growing season. Once you’ve finished growing the cannabis, you can also use the lemon balm to make lemon tea.
Conclusion
We’ve now covered details for 16 cannabis companion plants. There are more options available, but we think these are the best ones. Many of them have benefits that overlap, and very few of them have drawbacks. That means you can be pretty flexible in which ones you choose to use.
Some example marijuana strains that you might want to grow alongside these strains are:
- Durban Poison Feminized
- Gorilla Glue Feminized
- Super Silver Haze Feminized
- Girl Scout Cookies Extreme Feminized
There are many more strains that you can choose from, but these four are a worthy starting point if you’re new to growing marijuana. When you’re ready to grow different strains, you can look at others through researching online.
If you want to buy marijuana strains like those above or find out about others, you can do one thing.
Click here to visit ILGM, a seed bank that sells high-quality and premium marijuana seeds.