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I have a house full of plants, just recently they were all getting… | Anything about plants | Communauté Planta

Delilah444

I have a house full of plants, just recently they were all getting fungus gnats so I repotted every one of them as I’d tried everything from sticky traps to neem oil, now they are back with a vengeance and driving me mad 😩help!

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10 commentaires

  1. Abbi

    Have you tried watering with a hydrogen peroxide mixture? I tried that when I had fungus gnats in my plants on a window sill that were driving me crazy. Its been a while now and there are maybe a few still but nothing like before and I only did it once

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  2. Abbi

    So idk, a couple of times might have got them completely. You can look it up but I think it was 3 parts water 1 part hydrogen peroxide

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  3. Abbi

    Just the 3%

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  4. K

    The good news: I used to have this issue and these days can’t remember the last time I saw a fungus gnat, so there are absolutely solutions to this. The bad news: you just did a ton of work repotting and the solution I found would likely involve going through it again. Fungus gnats often come in with the potting medium itself, not the plant. Unless you’re using inert/hydroponic media, you should assume that any potting mix/components you buy are already contaminated with fungus gnats. My gnat problem went away when I started sterilizing my potting mix before use.

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    • Lindsay

      How do you do that?

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    • K

      Any time I open a bag of potting mix components, I pour it into casserole dishes/baking sheets and place in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Once it cools I place it in a storage container with a scoop I only use with sterilized potting mix, so the scoop doesn’t risk contaminating it. No fungus gnats since. Before I implemented this, I was using hydrogen peroxide, sticky traps, a little zapper, etc. At best I was controlling their numbers but not fixing them. I didn’t love using peroxide so often because it can also kill beneficial bacteria/fungi that help your plants access nutrients, so I worried my plants weren’t ever really establishing as well as they otherwise might. I didn’t swap out all my potting mix at once. Instead, I did it a few at a time when it seemed to make sense for each plant. That also meant that I didn’t have to buy all-new potting mix; I’d replace the mix for a few plants, sterilize what they’d been in, and then use it for the next repot. I had somewhere in the range of 80-100 plants at that time and did the whole process over the course of maybe 2-3 months.

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  5. MattL

    There are a couple of things you can do. First, if you’ve caught this at a stage where not every single plant has them, isolate the ones that do. Then, get some aquarium rock and add a layer on top of the soil such that it’s covered. That will disrupt their life cycle. Then, take an empty cat food can and put a 3:1 water:vinegar mix in it. Add a drop or two of dish soap and place next to your plants. (Depending on how many plants, you might do more than one). DON’T overwater. Gnats need moist soil. Let your plants dry out a bit more and you make their lives hard. You can also get sticky traps. I say do everything. Most important: continue doing everything for a month AFTER you’ve seen your last gnat. Otherwise…

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  6. kai

    my favorite favorite thing to get rid of fungus gnats is using bonide systemic granules!! they literally fixed my problem after i’d tried everything 🤭

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  7. YinDeezy

    Bonides systemic granules and beneficial nematodes for the larvae. Treat your entire collection at the same time. Sticky traps or zevo bug traps for the adults.

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  8. Hayley

    We get a ton of fungus gnats inside during warm months because we have a patch of yard that's perpetually wet and it's our cats' favorite place to roll around when they go out 😒 I use Arber Bio Insecticide (2 tablespoons per gallon) and bottom water. I try to keep the top of the soil as dry as I can so the larvae can't survive. That plus sticky traps seems to keep the population under control until winter

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