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Desperately need help!! I am leaving tomorrow for a 9 day vacation… | Pests, diseases and problems | Planta community

Jacqui B

Desperately need help!! I am leaving tomorrow for a 9 day vacation and I just found my very first ever mealybug on this White Knight leaf that newly unfurled. I've had it for a month or so and it never had any bugs before now! What do I do? Should I just toss this plant? How do you know where the eggs are? I don't see any mealybugs in any of my other plants nearby upon a quick inspection (will do a more thorough one later after my kids are asleep) but I simply don't have the time to deal with this right now and I'm afraid they will decimate my whole collection while I'm away! What should I do? I did recently get a couple of new, small plants online (expensive ones! Two 3-leaf monstera Thai cons in 3" pots) that came in last week and are in the same room as this one but about 3' away on a windowsill, but they don't have any bugs, and this one is further away from the window on my desk under a grow light.

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4 comments

  1. erickd8a

    If you don’t find any other bugs, I think you may be safe but I would also use a 1:1 rubbing alcohol and water solution to take care of pests whenever I see them. Has worked pretty well but you gotta make sure that you get the entire plant and do it on a weekly or so basis for about 2 months or so. Probably doesn’t hurt to do it as long as you’re willing and able to for best results. But yeah just gotta make sure you’re consistent with that treatment

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  2. ro <3

    mix alcohol (70% or less) and water and use a spray bottle to spritz it on the leaves!! do this for a couple days and keep it in a dark location afterwards. you can also put the mixture on a cotton swab and dab it directly onto the mealybugs. definitely isolate it from your other plants

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  3. Jacqui B

    Update: I found a TON of mealybug eggs in the soil of this plant. I did a little research and found that they dig in the soil to lay eggs. I’m hoping that’s a good sign that this plant is what brought the bugs in, and hopefully they’ve stayed on this one and not spread to my others near it. I ended up uprooting her completely, rinsing her to the roots, and repotting her in new soil. Idk if she will survive this or not but there were soooooo many eggs in the soil that she probably would have eventually been brought down by them anyways. Now I just am going to stay up all night before vacation checking the plants that were nearest to this one in hopes that I don’t find more!

    1 like
    • MummaDeb

      I definitely agree with the alcohol on the leaves. Usually I just take a Q-tip and dunk it in straight alcohol. I’ve only had to deal with mealy bugs once or twice. The best way to get rid of them is to be persistent. Quarantine the plant and go over it every week for a while. Also, whenever I have anything in the soil, I do two parts water to one part hydrogen peroxide, and pour it through.

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