I am having problems with white flies in one room in my home. Never had them before. I have sprayed the plants in that room with Safer's end all and Safer's insecticide soap. But the buggers keep showing up on other plants. Does anyone have suggestions before they spread to my other rooms? I have 125 plants altogether and I don't want to lose any more.
The first step is to quarantine the plants that have them in their own room for now. It may take some rearranging but will be worth it. Then, spray all the affected plants off with water- you can wrap the pots in plastic grocery or trash bags to prevent the water and eggs from falling into the soil. Once the plants have dried off, spray them thoroughly with insecticidal soap until it is running off every inch of the plant, including the underside of the leaves. After 12-24 hours, rinse the leaves off again or wipe them down with a wet cloth (to prevent buildup from the soap). Make sure to keep the plants away from light while they’re wet with the water or soap to prevent leaf scorch. Then, repeat spraying with insecticidal soap 1x/week for the next 4 weeks in order to beat the full lifecycle of white flies. If you don’t repeat spraying the soap 1x/week for 4 weeks, they will most likely come back.
1 LikeI knew I was in trouble when I spotted them. It's been hard to keep the plants away from other rooms as there is no stupid doors in this house. That's what scares me most. Do you know if brown mealybugs are related to white flies? Because a few other plants were totally infested with them. Those I destroyed, the others I sprayed with insecticidal soap. I have never had this much of an infestation in all my years taking care of my plants. Thanks for all your advice. I will start immediately.
1 Like You are welcome! Even if they’re in a separate room with no door, that’s better than having them all together. You could diy a temporary curtain of some sort to help- even a door isn’t 100% foolproof. I’m not sure if they’re related, but if a plant is in distress, it can attract pests, so it would make sense if having one could pest could make plants more susceptible to the others.
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