House Plant PESTS 🦟 How To Quickly and Easily GET THEM GONE 🌿

hello wanna play no what are you doing can i join in hello everyone welcome back to my channel if you're new here hi my name is claire and this is yoli i make videos all about houseplant care sharing tips and tricks i've learned over the years to help keep your plants happy and healthy and in today's video we're going to be talking all about pests and house plants unfortunately if you do have lots of plants pests are just something you're probably going to have to deal with from time to time i know they are a pain but it happens to all of us it's nothing to feel bad about especially at this time of year in the last month i've dealt with spider mites thrips meaty bugs aphids and fungus gnats so yeah i'm going to take you through all the ways that i've managed to kind of keep them at bay prevent them from coming back treat them when they're at their worst and yeah i hope you find it useful let's get into it [Music] so it's important to say straight away with pretty much all of the past treatments i'm going to be talking about in this video sometimes doing one treatment on a plant isn't enough to completely wipe out the infestation even if you think you have it first and believe me i am talking from experience here there have been so many times where i've treated a plant it's looked absolutely fine for a week a couple of weeks and then i thought ah it'll be all right and i've moved it back in with the rest of my plants and before you know it it has spread so just accept the fact that sometimes although it's annoying you might have to do several treatments in order to completely wipe out the infestation there's a few things that i personally always have in the house all year round just in the event that an infestation breaks out because with these things pretty much with all of these things you can treat more or less any pests the first one is hydrogen peroxide i'll talk about all of these in more detail as we get into individual pest treatments but yeah hydrogen peroxide it's good for so many things from root rot to pest treatments to antifungal treatments to all sorts the next one you've probably heard of it's neem oil and this stuff although i don't use it a lot to actually treat pests i know some people do i haven't had much luck with that but i use it as a pest preventative a lot of the time and it's just great the next one is super important this is a systemic bug killer and i use a brand called provento i'll link all of these products in the description box below by the way but this one's called provento and basically a systemic bug killer just gets right into the cells of your plant when you treat it it means that a lot of stuff aka pests that feed off it will will die when they eat your plant so that is a very very very good thing to have and lastly rubbing alcohol again this is amazing for certain types of pests and i have it i have it in the house always because it's brilliant and lastly this is one that's a little bit random but definitely definitely worth having makeup brushes i use them all the time for past treatments again i'll show you some examples when we get into the video but they're just amazing at getting into all the little like cracks and crevices of your plants that you might not be able to reach otherwise so yeah if you're looking to compile a little pest prevention shopping list those are the things that i would highly recommend getting i also just want to say that i'm by no means an expert i am just taking all of what i'm going to say in this video from my personal experience i have dealt with pests a lot over the years and these are the methods that have worked the best for me i know some people do it differently and that's it disclaimer done so the first one that we're going to talk about is thrips and i'm going to use my ethereum clarineum as an example for this because this one this time last year suffered really really badly with thrips you can still see you can still see the damage on some of her leaves and on the backs of the leaves as well and basically the most important thing to remember with thrips is that firstly they can fly so they can get very easily from plants plants and secondly that they can reproduce asexually which pretty much just means you only need one for an infestation to start so if you notice even one thrip then i would recommend isolating that plant pretty much immediately and keeping a very close eye on the ones around it young thrips as well tend to be very pale and sometimes a lot harder to spot than the adults that are much darker so often if you just kind of suspect that something's not right the signs to look for are stickiness on the leaves and discoloration like like you can see in patches here but yeah stickiness particularly on the backs of the leaves is definitely something to look out for the best method i found to get rid of thrips is firstly to wash down and wipe all areas of your plant both sides of the leaves and stems it's super important to get into all the little crevices of your plant so using a paintbrush or a makeup brush is a really effective way to help with this to target any hard to reach areas let your plant dry off and then thoroughly spray it with a systemic bug killer such as provento again be sure to spray all of the plant and not just the face of the leaves it's a good idea to keep your plant isolated away from other plants for at least a few weeks after treatment so that you can monitor it and make sure that if anything comes back you can deal with it immediately if you don't have a space to isolate it using a clear plastic bag to seal it in like this is a really good idea as a precautionary measure or if the infestation is particularly bad you can also use blue and yellow sticky traps to catch any potential runaway thrips when you do integrate your plant back into the rest of your collection using a diluted neem oil spray every few weeks to mist your plant along with regular pest checking can be a really good way to stop them from coming back i know i've used my anetherium clarinavium as an example and they don't particularly like their leaves to get wet but at the end of the day when it's down to that or pests then they're just gonna they're just gonna have to deal with it because otherwise it's gonna just completely wipe your plant out but yeah as i say mine has been thrip free thrip free thrip free for almost a year now and she's looking really really healthy and i've since dealt with thrips on other plants and that has personally been the best method i've found to get rid of them the second really common houseplant pest and one that i have battled with a lot over the years is spider mites up until recently my big alocasia portadora here was really badly affected touch wood it's been a good few months now and i've taken the risk and i've put her back in with the rest of my plants because i did several treatments and i haven't seen any sign of them anymore but in my opinion spider mites are i mean they're the ones that i hate the most just because in my experience a systemic pest control doesn't really work with them i will go through in a second the best way that i've found to get rid of them but you do have to do several several treatments like at first with this plant i gave her one treatment and then i treated her again a week later she looked absolutely fine it'd be in about four weeks i moved her back in with the rest and then all of a sudden the spider mites were back so yeah it was quite a while before i actually managed to fully get rid of them and get her back in with the rest of my collection but the common signs to look with with spider mites because they are so teeny tiny like they're microscopic and you don't always see the actual mites themself is if you look underneath the leaves for some reason it always tends to happen on the underneath first and you look for any patches of discoloration any webbing anything like that i'll put some clips in of the damage on this one because it is quite easy to spot and usually if it's been around other plants because spider mites don't fly they just crawl but if it's been close to other plants then it is unfortunately very likely that if you don't act quickly your other plants will also be infested i know a really hot topic in the plant community at the moment is predatory mites i know loads of people are using them particularly for spider mites and i did try them recently and to be completely honest i didn't have the best experience i followed all the instructions i used loads of sachets and to be honest they didn't really seem to do anything and at the time they ran out the spider mites were still there so for me i personally don't think i'll be using them again but as i say lots of people are having success with them the best method i've found for spider mites is mixing rubbing alcohol with a blob of washing up liquid neem oil and water to be honest i mainly free pour nowadays but the ratio should roughly be two parts alcohol to one part water again i use a makeup brush to apply it just because it can get into all the little crevices where the spider mites lay their eggs that can often be missed if you just wipe the leaves down try to really work the brush into any little gaps alcohol kills on contact so the more vigilant and thorough you can be the less you'll have to repeat this process it's really important to do both sides of the leaves as well as like i said they tend to set up camp and breed on the underside of the leaves as i say even with this treatment although it kind of appears to get rid of the infestation pretty much instantly i would recommend doing this at least a few times a week for a good few weeks before you risk putting your plant back in with your collection just because as i know from experience sometimes everything can look to be fine and then all of a sudden almost overnight it's not the other important thing to remember with spider mites is that very often they thrive in a warm dry climate so quite often misting your plants you can use a diluted neem oil spray but often just cranking up the humidity can be enough to keep them at bay the next pest that i have dealt with very very recently is mealybugs and i had an absolute nightmare so this is the plant that i found them on and this plant it's a philodendron splendid was in my cabinet there and i noticed mealy bugs in this plant the day before i went on holiday so i was like oh my goodness not only this plant but all of the plants that it's been in the cabinet with and it was the first time i'd ever had mealybugs as well so this was this was a bit of a nightmare and as i say this was actually only a few weeks ago and i know when i spoke about this in one of my other videos somebody said three weeks is not enough to declare a mealybug infestation over and i totally agree i totally totally agree i'm not saying that this plant is pest free i'm saying that for the last three weeks i haven't noticed signs of them again and i'm keeping it under very close observation but i did a lot of research i spoke to a lot of my friends in the plant community about the best way to deal with mealybugs mealybugs love a warm and moist environment so i think i probably created a pretty perfect breeding ground for them in my cabinet and although apparently the female ones don't fly the male ones can although it's more common for them to travel between plants through crawling so if you've got lots of plants quite close to each other then the risk of them spreading is fairly high so again this was major stress with everything in my cabinet mealy bugs from what i've heard and experienced so far compared to some others tend to be slightly easier to treat just dip a paintbrush or makeup brush into pure rubbing alcohol and directly coat any of the pests you can see with that it's also a good idea to use the alcohol washing up liquid mix i spoke about just now to give all areas of your plant a thorough rub down again working the brush into any crevices [Music] afterwards use a systemic bug killer to spray all areas of the plant and continue to keep the plants isolated for at least a few weeks before reintroducing it to the rest of your collection [Music] i know it was only a few weeks ago that i treated this plant and i did actually decide to treat all of the plants in my cabinet with profanto as well the systemic bug killer and touch wood so far i haven't seen haven't seen any more signs but i'm keeping it under very very close supervision and also in regards to mealybugs in the soil because that's something that i've actually personally never experienced but again i have spoken to multiple friends in the plant community that have and supposedly the best way to treat this is firstly to repot your plants obviously don't keep the old soil don't even compost it because then you risk it spreading to outdoor plants just bin it get it far away from your plants and then soak your plants roots in a one to three ratio of hydrogen peroxide very similarly to how you do for root rot as i say i have made a full video on hydrogen peroxide that i will link up there and in the description box below but yeah even after that treating your plant with a systemic pest treatment and keeping it isolated continuing to monitor it that seems to be the general consensus on that one another pest that i've dealt with a lot so far this summer is aphids aphids are basically little green insects or flies they don't actually always fly some have wings some don't but they feed off the sap of your plants and oh my goodness they are such a nightmare and if you guys have watched my other videos then you'll know that i'm currently living back at my mum's house i'm living back at home for the time being and part of the reason my battle has continued for so long is because my mom's got a lot of outdoor plants that she's growing like pepper plants and stuff like that and she takes them outside during the day and then she brings them back inside to this room where the majority of my plants are so it's been a bit of a nightmare i've had to treat all of her plants i've had to treat all of my plants as well a lot of them anyway and it's just a bit of an ongoing battle take your plant outside if possible or far away from your other plants and squash all the aphids you can see and then thoroughly shower the plant down getting into all the crevices again using a fine paintbrush or makeup brush is a really good way to get into any hard to reach areas be aware as well aphids often tend to appear on younger leaves or new unfurling leaves at first so it's really important to target absolutely everywhere afterwards spray your plant down with a systemic bug killer being sure to spray all areas of the plant continue to keep it isolated for a few weeks and use a diluted neem oil spray as a precautionary measure to help prevent them from coming back [Music] as i say this has been slightly ongoing for me but i have also dealt with aphids before when i haven't been living back at home and this has been the most effective way to get rid of them and the last one that i'm going to talk about in this video that i feel like a lot of us can probably relate to is fungus gnats fungus gnats are an absolute pain they just fly around your plants they lay their eggs in damp soil so actually the best probably the most effective way of making sure you never get fungus gnats is by switching to either complete hydroponics or a semi-hydroponic substrate such as pond pond is just absolutely brilliant because it means that they can't lay their eggs in there there's nothing for them to breed in and it's also a substitute that just tends to keep your plants really really happy if however like me you do keep a lot of your plants in soil then the best possible thing that i found is hydrogen peroxide fungus gnats it is absolutely amazing i did make a full video on this along with how to treat root rot and all that sort of stuff but specifically focused on fungus gnats because my friends plants had an awful infestation and we managed to get rid of them using this [Music] besides completely changing your substitute to something like pond the most effective ways that i've found are repotting plants that are seriously affected in fresh soil and watering the new soil with a hydrogen peroxide and water mixture as i say i did make a video specifically about this taking you through all of the steps to do this so i will link that video in the description box below hydrogen peroxide is really amazing for targeting the larvae lava i never know how you say it the stuff that breeds in the soil basically and that's the bit that can actually damage your plants the flying little insects they're they're just going to be annoying they're not actually going to cause your plants any damage but it's the larvae lava that stuff that is going to be damaging to your plant's root system and that is the thing that you need to target in terms of actually getting rid of the flies themselves blue and yellow sticky traps are probably the best thing particularly just after you treat your plants with hydrogen peroxide or just after you water and you notice them all kind of flying up out of the soil if you just place blue and yellow sticky traps all around your plants hang them all over the room then hopefully that should help to take out some of the adults the other literally amazing thing to get rid of the larvae i'm just going to call it larvae i don't know if that's right but the other amazing thing for that is using mosquito bits you literally just sprinkle that on your soil and it helps to attack and get rid of any of the larvae so that they can't develop into bigger flies if you do decide to use this in combination with hydrogen peroxide then it's a good idea to wait a couple of days after using the hydrogen peroxide before you add the mosquito bits i'm personally not using mosquito bits at the moment i have used them in the past and got on really well with them but for me hydrogen peroxide is just literally it's the best thing so i am i'm just using that at the moment and what i do as well occasionally is if i notice an outbreak starting to happen in a pot after i've watered it through then i will just take a sprayer and i will just spray pure hydrogen peroxide onto the top of the soil and yeah touch wood that is that is really really helping and i've got a lot of plants so yeah i really really hope this video was useful if there's anything that i didn't cover or i rushed over or you've got any questions about anything then drop me a comment down below and i will try and help if there's any other pests as well like white fly black fly scale anything like that that you've got any questions on again leave me a comment down below but i really really hope you found this video useful if you did please make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel have a lovely day and i will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: The Jungle Haven

Views: 30,587

Keywords: House plant pests, how to quickly and easily get them gone, get rid of spider mites, get rid of thrips, get rid of mealybugs, bugs on houseplant, plant pest treatments, pest treatment in houseplants, how to get rid of fungus gnats, flys around plants, flies around plants, black flies houseplants, get rid of plant flies, fungus gnat treatment house plants, indoor plants pests, treat houseplant pests diy, easy pest treatment for plants, houseplant bugs help, get rid of bugs

Id: fNYW0O7-K7I

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022