The main pests of indoor plants

The most common pest of indoor flowers. Characteristic signs of damage: punctures, whitish or yellowish, are visible in the sheet lumen. Gradually, they merge into spots. The leaves pale, acquire a grayish tint. Then the leaves dry out, completely lose their color. This is a typical pattern, but in some cases the leaves turn red or bronze. In some plants, the leaves do not change shape even when the spots are large, in other cases they are greatly deformed and twisted.

Here are photographs of a spider mite for quick identification of a pest on indoor plants. How to tell the difference between who eats your flowers and how to deal with the pest.

The leaves turn yellow, a spider web has appeared on the flowers, dots appear on the leaves, as if they were pierced by a needle, the flowers do not grow, the tops of the shoots wither - these are signs of a spider mite. Tips from experienced flower growers on how to deal with ticks with folk remedies or with the help of chemistry.

A parcel with orchids came, and there black bugs like ticks run quickly. Who is that?

Shell mites or oribatids are soil arthropods. By 2015, more than 7,000 species of carapace mites have been described. Who are they pests or useful animals? Do I need to destroy them, what means to fight. What to do if shell mites have settled in orchid pots.

How carapace ticks look, how to distinguish them from herbivorous ticks: cobwebs, flat ticks and a wide tick.

Thrips on indoor flowers are not uncommon, they come to our house from the street, garden flowers, with purchased indoor plants and with a flower cut (from bouquets). They spread very quickly on domestic plants, suck juices out of them, pollute leaves with skins and excrement. Thrips is dangerous because it has several stages of development, some of which are secretive - females lay eggs directly in the leaf tissue, and nymphs hide in the ground. In addition, eggs and nymphs have covers that protect them from contact insecticides. Therefore, the fight against trips goes in several stages.

Silvery spots, discolored areas appeared on the leaves, shoots dry and deform, the plant does not bloom, the leaves turn yellow, small black drops or crumbs appeared on the surface of the leaves - these are signs of thrips. Look at photos of the pest and compare with your plant.

Tips to combat thrips may come in handy.

From the point of view of indoor floriculture, the danger of scutes is that due to parthenogenesis - the offspring of females without fertilization, scutes can multiply, all year round, giving out about 5-6 generations, the process of generational change is continuous. At the same time, males are extremely rare among indoor shields, but if they appear, for some reason they are very frightening. Someone begins to think that this unknown is a terribly gluttonous creature. In fact, the development cycle of scale insects, with or without males, is no different. By themselves, males do not harm plants - they simply have nothing to eat. In fact, male shields hatch for the sake of a single mission - fertilization, therefore, all they have is eyes, wings and genitals.

What is the shield and false shield like - brown spots on the stems, petioles, leaves, translucent or with a dense brown shield, flat or convex. The smallest ones are almost invisible, but if you put it together, press it with a needle, there is a wet trace. And what the leaves of various plants, affected by the scale, look at the photographs of various plants.

Tips from experienced flower growers, how to cure the shield with folk remedies and with the help of drugs.

The bristly worm or mealybug is a small insect that settles on plants. Its body is covered with a white waxy coating, from which the accumulations of pests are similar to cotton lumps.

Worms cause serious damage to indoor plants, and it is quite difficult to breed them at home. What to look for: if the leaves turn yellow and fall, the shoots lag behind in growth, small white spots are visible on the stems or under the leaves. Worms climb under the bark of indoor fruit exotes, under the scales of bulbs of hippeastrums and other bulbous ones, hide in fluffy hairs on the stems of begonias. Sooty fungi can settle on the secretions of worms.

This pest is not always immediately noticed: worms can hide for a long time in the basal zone, at the surface of the earth, in the axils of leaves.

And only when the colony of worms grows numerous and voracious, the pests will be noticeable on the leaves. But by this time, as a rule, the plant melts, permanently turns yellow and dies.

Whitefly is a pest of indoor and garden plants, all species breed easily in the apartment, some species calmly winter in the middle latitudes and breed under our windows since spring. He especially loves whitefly celandine, which grows under our windows, and in the gardens spoils any vegetables, especially cabbage, and berries .

How to identify a pest - photos of whiteflies, measures to combat whiteflies.

At home, aphids can harm all year round. They breed quite quickly, forming colonies that capture more and more territory. But unlike ticks, aphids are large pests, they are easy to see with the naked eye. Aphids focus on the most delicate parts of the plant - the tops of shoots, buds, flowers. In many plants, the easiest way is to prune affected shoots and cut off peduncles. In plants that form a rosette, wash the leaves with a sponge with green soap, and clean the axils of the leaf with a cotton swab soaked in alcohol.

If aphids run very high on indoor flowers, spray the plants with any insecticide. They will help you: actara, confidor, tanrek, phytoverm, inta-vir, spark, spark-bao, deciss and other drugs.

In gardens, green potassium soap is also an indispensable assistant - it does not smell and is not poisonous to people. It is necessary to dilute potassium soap at the rate of 20 g of liquid green soap per 1 liter of water. Especially carefully spray secluded places - the tops of the shoots, the axils of the leaves, apply a foam cap to the buds. Do not wash off the soap solution!

Read about how to deal with aphids in a garden plot: How to destroy aphids

The nematode is of various species, the root usually forms spherical outgrowths or swellings. Stem or leaf nematodes do not form swellings, but cause severe deformation of leaves, stems, buds. Flowers, as a rule, do not even open. They suffer greatly from the nematode begonia, gloxinia, ficuses, ferns. Their leaves shrivel, as if shrinking, brown between the veins, young grow immediately curved, ugly.

Some types of nematodes form galls on flowers, often nematode damage is accompanied by symptoms of bacterial infections.

Sciarids or mushroom mosquitoes - small annoying midges start in flowers, fly throughout the apartment. By themselves, they do not harm, they do not eat flowers, but mosquitoes are a sure sign that plants are systematically flooded. You need to check the ground in pots with flowers, because if you do not eliminate waterlogging, the roots of plants can rot.

If mosquitoes manage to lay eggs in the soil, larvae that feed on rotting organic matter hatch from them, which can partially damage the roots of plants.

The larvae of these flies gnaw through the core of the leaves, leaving discolored patterns of passages on them - min. Disfigure the leaves of trees, shrubs, including conifers, and herbaceous plants, in room conditions they can infect violets (senpoli), succulents (milkweeds, stoneware), hibiscus syngonium and other plants...

Root and onion ticks feed on the underground part of plants - they gnaw out bulbs, feed on juicy roots. They are found at the stage when the plant has already suffered greatly - growth is suppressed, leaves turn yellow, buds and flowers do not form, sometimes there is a lopsided drying of the crown - in separate branches, but more often the plant has common signs of starvation - chlorosis. Often, an infection gets into wounds on the roots and bulbs, and the plant falls ill with fusariosis.

High soil moisture contributes to more rapid reproduction of root mites. Very often affected houseplants, especially small and delicate ones, die. The best prevention is soil disinfection and quarantine of all purchased plants.

There are pests that appear quite rarely in pots of flowers - these are enhitrei, woodlice, earthworms can be brought from the garden land, weevil or woodlice can get into the house. If you have someone crawling in a pot, look here, you may recognize the pest...

Many of them are not as dangerous as they seem, and sometimes not at all dangerous, for example, podurs or enhitrei can overeat the decaying roots of plants, but in themselves are not the cause of the death of indoor flowers. Plants die from overflow and putrefactive infections.

Some white little fleas jump in pots with houseplants. Gray worms swim in the pallet after watering. Small brown spiders crawl near the roots. All these are soil inhabitants - collembolas, cattails and podurs. Harmless, in essence, inhabitants of the soil rich in humus and organic matter. They come to our house with land from the garden or with store soil. But as long as the soil moisture is moderate, the bugs are not visible. When the earth inside the pot does not dry out for many days, the roots of plants begin to rot, podurs multiply in large numbers.

Podurs are a sign of impaired houseplant care, systematic waterlogging, frequent watering, or incorrectly selected soil (too moisture-intensive, heavy, non-porous).