I think this is a watermelon money plant ? Correct me if I’m wrong … but it is my favorite plant right now because I’ve successfully propagated it and it’s been sprouting lots of babies since I moved it into soil 🥰 my concern is there are like 10 fruit flies in the soil at all times :( I’ve been spraying it with neem oil but it hasn’t helped . Any tips or tricks ? Thanks in advance 😁
Watermelon peperomia 😊
4 Mi piace
Definitely a watermelon Peperomia. I’ve got one myself (her name’s Wanda). I have a feeling what you’ve got is fungus gnats, which has quite a few options for treatments, but those treatments can take weeks. If you wanna try treating it first, you can use diamactous earth or mosquito dunks. It’ll probably take a couple of weeks, but people swear by them. Option 2 is you soak the roots in a mix of 1 part hydrogen peroxide and 2 parts water for 30 minutes, gently rinse the roots off with room temp water and repot in fresh soil, and bottom water that plant from now on, then place some sticky traps around the plants near it, and in its new soil to prevent attracting new gnats
Gnats aren’t gonna kill your plant, but they’re annoying and they spread to other plants. They love moist top soil and are especially attracted to overwatered plants, so bottom watering is really key to make sure they don’t come back, as well as repotting it in a fresh soil mix. I like recommending repotting if it’s only one plant cause it’s a lot less time consuming in the long run and reduces the risk of the gnats spreading to any other plants you have. If you’re new to bottom watering, look up “how to bottom water a plant” on YouTube. It’s really easy, and all my peperomias love it. Helps promote a stronger root system and prevent overwatering too, which is really key with peperomia. If you need any soil recommendations, I swear by Espoma, I use a mix of 20% of their cactus and succulent mix and 80% of their all-purpose mix to keep the soil well draining but still retaining enough moisture for a plant that comes from South and Central American rainforests. Please avoid Miracle Grow. It’s a fungus gnat magnet, and it can stay too moist for way too long, and lead to root rot for succulent and succulent like plants like peperomia, especially if you live in a humid climate. I know the app says to mist them, and water when the top layer of the soil is dry, but I’ve found mine like acting like succulents, and if you don’t want the gnats to come back, don’t mist it, and let the soil completely dry out before watering. Hope this helps.
2 Mi piace Last thing I wanted to add is that you might wanna check that the app isn’t telling you to water too early. as the seasons change, the app might tell you to water it more or less often, but I’ve noticed a glitch where the number of days before watering is WAY off for some of my plants, but the app gives the correct number if you look the plant up through the ID search section. If the number the app’s giving your plant doesn’t match, then you’ve got that glitch, and should check any other plants you’ve got. You can remedy this by going to the plant’s custom settings and changing the watering where is says “custom care schedule” from “no, use Planta’s advice” to “yes, use custom schedule”, and change it to match the ID search’s number. I do this every month now, I know that sounds annoying, but I’m currently beta testing for the app and I’ve brought it up multiple times on the feedback section. I really hope they fix the bug, cause it can kill plants quickly, or lead to gnat attraction.
It should take you to a page that looks like this when you say “yes, change to custom schedule”. This is what mine looks like during the fall for my jade. I’m currently watering my peperomias every 10 days. If it says anything earlier than that for your watermelon peperomia, change it.
