EWWW! What's That STICKY Stuff on my Plants? — Ep 204

can i tell you that i get quite a few requests from folks asking me to identify sticky stuff on their plants well today i hope to solve your sticky [Music] situation and as we're going around our house taking care of our plants watering them lovingly we might notice this glisten out of the corner of our eyes and then as we go into stroke our beloved plants we may find that they're actually sticky so no need to panic quite yet let's explore the possibilities of why our plants may be sticky firstly check if the plants around the the sticky plant are actually in bloom some plants like hoya carry eye for instance actually produce quite a bit of nectar and in this case it actually produces this viscous amber colored nectar that can often stain your shelves or other plants and i actually had another hoya hoya macrophylla that actually was giving some pretty viscous nectar blooms and it was dropping down onto its own leaves so that's something that you should look for additionally when female flowers of anthurium for example are receptive and this is one that is not receptive yet but when they do get receptive they'll start to be sticky to the touch and you may even see some small drops along the spadex now lots of sticky nectar may be produced in order to attract certain pollinators or even detract certain insects whatever the case the plant developed the strategy likely for good reason and you may just be discovering that in your home so another great example is sundews or if you have some of those carnivorous plants that actually produce some sticky substances around it in order to be able to draw insects in and then capture them now if the nectar is dropping onto your plant or your shelf below then i would clean it up because it may just not stain the surface but it's also on the plant leaves below and it can invite some possible pathogens or dust will get stuck on it or it just may look really unsightly now next to nectar it may be that your plant has nectaries and i know nectar and nectaries actually sound alike but they are in fact different now over a hundred plant families and almost 4 000 species of plants actually have some sort of extra floral nectaries which like nectar is this yummy carbohydrate-rich substance that typically attracts ants which then in turn can protect the plant from herbivores now a lot of philodendron has a lot of these extra floral nectaries which i can just show you along this plant so you can see along the mid vein here of the leaf and then you'll see these bright red dots and if you if i put my finger on one of these ones that has this like little exudate coming out of it then you'll see that these are actually quite sticky and you might think that this is actually from you know some terrible insects sucking on the plant but this is not these are all examples of extrafloral nectaries now i also noticed the other day on my rib solace this is my repsolis curiosities and look at all these little crystalline bits that are coming out of out of the stem here now this may have actually started sticky but has hardened up and turned into these crystals and i of course being the curious person that i am tried it and it actually tastes like sugar so this is another great example of a plant like this rib solace exuding some drops from its stems that were less gooey and more crystallized so anyway i i can imagine that many repsolis actually produce some candy for insects and arthropods and this is really nothing to worry about because this is just natural for the plant to do now nectaries are woefully understudied but i think they are a really fascinating occurrence and i do hope that there are some good grad students out there that will commit themselves to studying nectaries more and one hypothesis i love is that extra floral nectaries in particular are so important to ants that their presence on plants has potentially helped establish world dominance of ants now just how dominant are ants well there is estimated to be between 1 and 10 quadrillion ants on earth which is way too many zeros for our brains to process but i think quadrillion is like 15 zeros or something like that so it's it's a lot of ants now i could go on and on about nectaries because they really do warrant their own episode but this episode is about identifying your sticky plant substances and that means we need to move on to the next possibility which is honeydew which is a nice word for insect frass which is a nice word for insect poop which is a nice word for insect and this is usually caused by some sap sucking mother suckers and um i was allotted my one curse word limit in this video so that is the only one i can put in so one thing you should look out for is that it's not the nectars or it's not the nectaries is whether your plant or for that matter any other plant that around the sticky plant is being sucked to death by pesky little sap sucking insects like aphids or scale for instance so some insects such as those tap into the phloem of the plants and feed on the sugary sap and then what they do is they poop out the sugar from their hind ends and that can also attract ants but it could also drop onto other plants below and then that can bring in like anything from like black city mold or the like and that that could cover and coat your plant leaves so you'll need to actually clean that up but more importantly you'll need to identify where the pests are and then handle them that way now if you do identify some sap suckers then you will need to take that appropriate action depending on the pest and unfortunately you will need to stay on top of them because they really do proliferate like crazy and i've touched upon this in some of my other videos so if you're curious on how to deal with certain pests then you can check out my pest management playlist here on youtube or you could dive into the extensive pest management sections in the houseplant masterclass so guys let me know if you've noticed some sticky substances on your plants not your pants on your plants and what you think it is and tell me in the comments below and please guys keep it pg and pc folks all right see you in the next episode did you know that you can be a supporter of plant one on me well take a look at our sustaining membership because through your direct support it helps allow us to keep producing high quality videos and some of the easiest ways that you could support are liking the video subscribing to the channel and hitting that notification button to get these videos delivered to your inbox if you're interested in furthering your houseplant education then take a look at our courses and digital offerings like houseplant basics for beginners and the houseplant master class both of which will give you a certificate of completion when you're finished with the courses information on all these offerings can be found on the website at homesteadbrooklyn.com you

Channel: Summer Rayne Oakes

Views: 54,930

Keywords: Summer Rayne Oakes, Homestead Brooklyn, Plant One On Me, plants, houseplants, indoor plants, gardening, house plants, houseplant care, nectar, plant nectar, plant nectaries, extrafloral nectaries, insect frass, aphids, plant scale, sticky substance on plants, sticky houseplants, Hoya kerrii, philodendron red dots, marks on my philodendron, sticky substance on houseplants, control insects on plants, scales, mealybugs, mealybugs on plants, control scale on plants, get rid of aphids

Id: nsC_I8SxeCE

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020