Useful Tips

Top Tips to Get Rid of Houseplant Pests

Indoor houseplant pests are a nuisance, but getting rid of them doesn’t need to be a struggle. These valuable tips give you natural as well as chemical-based options for eliminating the seven most common houseplant pests.

People love indoor gardening because it has many advantages over outdoor gardening, including fewer pest problems. That doesn’t mean, however, that pest problems never occur indoors. As windows and doors open or new plants are brought into a home, pesky insects are invited to take up residence in our plants.

Thankfully, indoor houseplant pests are typically easier to treat, and infestations are usually spotted much quicker, than when an outdoor plant has problems. The most common pests are aphids, spider mites, fungus gnats, mealybugs, scale, thrips, and whitefly.

img_swipeleft@3x
Top Tips to Get Rid of Houseplant Pests

If you find yourself dealing with houseplant pests, there are numerous ways to get rid of them, ranging from non-toxic natural ways to chemical insecticides. Keep reading to learn more about the common bugs found on houseplants and tips for treating them.

Treating Indoor Winter Houseplant Pests

When insects are discovered in your outdoor garden plants or hanging baskets, many gardeners turn to chemical insecticides or natural predators to get rid of the bugs. But managing pest problems on indoor plants is a little trickier. Many people don’t want to be spraying chemicals inside their homes, nor do they want to throw away houseplants because they have bugs, so they look for more natural methods.

To treat indoor houseplant pests, you can manually remove them, apply natural products, or choose chemical treatments.

Removing insects manually

There are two ways to remove insects manually. You can pick them off by hand, or you can use water to knock the bugs off of the foliage. These two methods are the safest and least-toxic ways to treat insects on indoor houseplants.

  • Removing pests by hand is time-consuming, but it is incredibly effective. Start by wiping leaves gently with a clean, damp cloth to remove most of the problems. Then use disinfected tweezers to remove insects and eggs from the hard-to-reach spots where leaves attach to the stems or branches.
  • If your plants have many leaves, or a heavy infestation, rinsing them with water is more effective and takes less time. You can use your kitchen sink sprayer or showerhead, depending upon the size of the plant. Carefully rinse the plant with tepid water, making sure to get the undersides of the leaves.
Treating plants naturally

If you’d rather not sit and remove insects by hand, or the infestation is worse than you anticipated, and you’re looking for natural treatment options, there are a couple of choices:

  • Dip a cotton swab or cotton ball in rubbing alcohol and then saturate insects individually. Before doing this on the entire plant, test an inconspicuous area under a leaf to make sure it doesn’t cause any damage to the waxy cuticle.
  • Spray plants using an insecticidal soap solution, including the undersides of leaves, until the solution is dripping from the plant. The fatty acids in the insecticidal soaps suffocate small insects with soft bodies or damage their cellular membrane structures.
  • Treat plants with neem oil, a naturally occurring pesticide made from the pressed seeds of the neem tree. It shows very little toxicity to beneficial organisms but blocks the production of hormones that transition pests through their life cycles. The life cycle then stops.
Chemical treatment options

Plants can also be treated with chemical insecticides if none of the other methods eradicate the problem. If you opt to use an insecticide, correctly identify the pest, then purchase a chemical formulated for that insect and its life stage.

The insecticide should also be labeled for indoor use. Always use proper safety measures and follow the label instructions carefully.