The most common indoor plant pests do varying degrees of damage to our houseplants. sometimes they can do a LOT of damage to our houseplants.
Anyway, Who wants nasty bugs in the house? They are ugly, creepy and annoying to deal with. We complied our complete list of the most common indoor pests and how to control them.
Each pest guide in this post has methods of killing off the bugs most often found on your indoor plants. We include tips and organic methods and strategies designed to control pests on houseplants.
We love our houseplants. It’s upsetting (at least to me) to find creepy crawlies on my houseplants. This may be even more concerning when you realize they are injuring your plant severely.
Or, like the fungus gnat, they sometimes present more of a nuisance to you than a life threatening problem for your plant.
Most plants can withstand a mild infestation of bugs and slog along tolerably well. The bugs are tiny and individually do little damage.
However, pests can reproduce at a fast clip if you don’t control them. That’s when your plants are in trouble. If you let the bug population get really out of hand your plant will be weakened and eventually be beyond saving.
It’s best to nip the problem in the early stages of infestation. Our plant pest control guides tell you how to get ahead of the pesky plant critters.
This post is all about indoor plant pests and how to kill and manage them.
The good news is if you follow the instructions in each of our plant care guides your plant is getting good care and regular leaf washings. This will help you find pests early on and deter them.
7 Most Common Indoor Plant Pests:
Which pests do you have? What do you do about them?
Fungus gnats, spider mites, aphids, whiteflies, thrips, scale and mealy bugs are the pests you will most often find on your plants.
This handy list guide links to each of these 7 common indoor plant pest control guides.
Each guide will Identify a common plant pest and the damage they cause to your houseplant.
Each post in our list below contains tips and method on how to kill and prevent these common pests on indoor plants, keep your home pest free and your plants healthy.
7 Common Indoor Plant Pests (& How to Kill them)
The 7 most common houseplants and their control guides are all below. Each guide teaches you what they look like and the damage they cause, We give you tips and methods for keeping your plants healthy and pest free. You will find a homemade neem oil recipe that will delight your plants, keep your home topxin free and kill those pesky pests.
Fungus gnats are not usually a lethal problem for your plants. However, They can chew your plant roots in their larval stage. Mostly they fly around the plants and annoy us. Here's some method to kill fungus gnats and control their numbers in the future.
This is by far one of the most common pests indoor plants suffer with. They build webs, chew your plants leaves and definitely make a pest of themselves. They can quickly build to a large population that will do damage that is hard for the plant to recover quickly from. A badly infested plant can have future growth stunted. Learn how to kill spider mites!
Thrips are another leaf eating bug. Their damage and life cycle is very different from the spider mite. But they do wound your houseplant leaves and suck energy from your plant. They need eradication. Learn more here.
A small infestation of mealy bugs found before the bugs have heavily multiplied can be effectively attacked with a cotton swab and rubbing alcohol. Just touch the bug and it will fall off the plant. More effective and long term methods of managing the mealy bugs in your houseplants are in this post.
Like fungus gnats, whiteflies are seen flying most often. They are most often seen when you touch the plant and a cloud of white flies surrounds the plant. Find out effective ways to kill and mangage whiteflies here.
Scale attaches directly to the plant stems and look like small imconspicous lump[s. It's easy to miss them. Meanwhile they are sucking the life blood from your plants and reproucing like crazy. Learn more about controlling scale in this post.
This is a comprehensive article on aphids lifecycle. Learn about the herder ants which farm them (and all honeydew producing insects) and all the ways to kill aphids and manage them before your house is infested with aphids and ants.
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