SPIDERMITES

[PlanterPalm]

My cat palm has been looking bad, I mean more browning leaves and fronds and just looking awful. I gave it another throrough check and it was Spider mites, took it in my tub, washed it with dish soap and hosed it down a little soap got in the soil so I pushed a gallon through. Since alot of the fronds were severely browned and damaged I had to do alot of trimming but the new frond is currently still pushing and about to uncurl, so Ig its ok for now. Ill def get neem oil with my next check

[JohnAndSancho]

I'm dealing with an outbreak too, which is super cool because my grow room is big, there's A LOT of plants in there, and it's a dusty room that sat empty for 17 years. I'm buying a pump sprayer and the heavy duty neem concentrate when I go to town this week. Btw if nobody's told you yet, neem oil stinks like hell. Your house is gonna smell like diabetes feet for a few days. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

9 hours ago, PlanterPalm said:

... Ill def get neem oil with my next check

You should just continue with the soapy water spray every 3 or 4 days for a couple of weeks to eradicate the mites. No foul odors and it works.

[JohnAndSancho]

 

I ain't playing with these little *4 minute string of expletives* 

[Harry’s Palms]

Back when I had house plants , I always just used the soupy water method . Yes , you have to repeat the process to keep it under control , but it works and no chemical or foul odor. My Chrysalidiocarpus Lutescens was particularly vulnerable to mealy bugs and scale . It is a lot of work to keep plants looking good indoors and , fortunately, I live in a climate that allows me to grow many palms in the garden where I have very little problem with pests. Even outdoors , I use the soapy water method to “wash “ the pests off on the rare occasions that I get them . If they persist , I use a vegetable spray that is not so toxic to animals or wildlife. Harry

[JohnAndSancho]

1 hour ago, Harry’s Palms said:

Back when I had house plants , I always just used the soupy water method . Yes , you have to repeat the process to keep it under control , but it works and no chemical or foul odor. My Chrysalidiocarpus Lutescens was particularly vulnerable to mealy bugs and scale . It is a lot of work to keep plants looking good indoors and , fortunately, I live in a climate that allows me to grow many palms in the garden where I have very little problem with pests. Even outdoors , I use the soapy water method to “wash “ the pests off on the rare occasions that I get them . If they persist , I use a vegetable spray that is not so toxic to animals or wildlife. Harry

I did a quick count last night before I went to bed, and to be fair, some of these are community pots, the vast majority are seeds sprouting (papaya, mango, guava, clementine) from fruit I ate, etc etc but there's 136 pots in this room. I can deal with a few days of neem stink if it works. I guess if I was smart and planned things out, I would have cleaned better before I decided to go full on crazy. Lol I didn't plan this at all. It started off with a bunch of gifted plants and some freebies and a few deals I couldn't say no to, and it quickly turned into learning the hard way just how small I have to get plywood cut to fit in the car to this absolute madness that's only going to get worse. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

1 hour ago, JohnAndSancho said:

... I would have cleaned better before I decided to go full on crazy. Lol I didn't plan this at all. ...

Well, if nothing else, a full time job of your own making. 😂

[JohnAndSancho]

16 minutes ago, Las Palmas Norte said:

Well, if nothing else, a full time job of your own making. 😂

That's literally what it's becoming. And I know I've said this hundreds of times, but by the time I get finished with everything inside, it'll be time to put the plants all outside and then I'll get a full time job fighting cats and fire ants but hopefully becoming really good friends with the UPS man and hopefully my grant proposals and my SSDI go through. 

[PlanterPalm]

On 11/29/2025 at 9:00 PM, JohnAndSancho said:

I'm dealing with an outbreak too, which is super cool because my grow room is big, there's A LOT of plants in there, and it's a dusty room that sat empty for 17 years. I'm buying a pump sprayer and the heavy duty neem concentrate when I go to town this week. Btw if nobody's told you yet, neem oil stinks like hell. Your house is gonna smell like diabetes feet for a few days. 

Thats a risk I am willing to take

[JohnAndSancho]

1 hour ago, PlanterPalm said:

Thats a risk I am willing to take

I'll be honest, I still haven't mixed and loaded up this sprayer yet. Physical therapy and my health issues and etc have wore me out. But if you don't live alone, consider an insecticidal soap instead of this is your only indoor plant. If this is the only one and you can put your palm in the shower regularly, that's the move. Between seeds and community pots etc etc I have 136 in the grow room and nobody but me and the dog go in there, and I have my Gain scented Febreeze. Even when I lived alone, I put my plants outside after neem oil spray. It's not quite like the smell of a dead body if you've ever been unfortunate enough to smell one, but man, it does not smell good. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Ok. If anyone cares, the Captain Jack or whatever his name is Neem Max doesn't smell that offensive. The Bonide brand. I would also like to add that 2 gallons is A LOT of spray. I sprayed every plant I own twice, I tried to torment some fire ants - but it's cold and rainy so I didn't see any. I ended up dumping half of it out after flooding every ant bed I saw. 

[happypalms]

Raise the humidity they dislike humidity and wet conditions. The grow environment is to dry, mites build up resistance to most chemicals, so you have to rotate your chemicals or whatever you use. Or get ladybugs 🐞 predator bugs for control. Warm dry conditions mites love  that. You could get predator mites as well online! 

[JohnAndSancho]

4 hours ago, happypalms said:

Raise the humidity they dislike humidity and wet conditions. The grow environment is to dry, mites build up resistance to most chemicals, so you have to rotate your chemicals or whatever you use. Or get ladybugs 🐞 predator bugs for control. Warm dry conditions mites love  that. You could get predator mites as well online! 

Ohhhhh going from a 5 gallon bucket in front of the fan to a 27 gallon tote full of water in front of the heater has definitely raised the humidity in there. And neem oil seems to be regarded as a solid organic treatment as long as I keep up with it and use it regularly. I'm definitely on board with the predatory mites but the shipping is murder because they have to be overnighted. I honestly thought keeping it bright with 60% humidity was enough but nope. I even sprayed the cracks, crevices and corners, the undersides of the tables, anywhere that's gonna get dusty (since this is still technically indoors and not a true greenhouse) - so I'm hoping for the best here. I've put a ton of work into this room and I'm not gonna let some bugs that I can't even see defeat me. 

[happypalms]

1 hour ago, JohnAndSancho said:

Ohhhhh going from a 5 gallon bucket in front of the fan to a 27 gallon tote full of water in front of the heater has definitely raised the humidity in there. And neem oil seems to be regarded as a solid organic treatment as long as I keep up with it and use it regularly. I'm definitely on board with the predatory mites but the shipping is murder because they have to be overnighted. I honestly thought keeping it bright with 60% humidity was enough but nope. I even sprayed the cracks, crevices and corners, the undersides of the tables, anywhere that's gonna get dusty (since this is still technically indoors and not a true greenhouse) - so I'm hoping for the best here. I've put a ton of work into this room and I'm not gonna let some bugs that I can't even see defeat me. 

Good luck it’s a battle to win against them indoors, control is your best approach. A good hose down will deter them as well. 

[JohnAndSancho]

2 hours ago, happypalms said:

Good luck it’s a battle to win against them indoors, control is your best approach. A good hose down will deter them as well. 

It doesn't help that this room was super dusty when I took it over. I've vacuumed a few times, there were shutters on the wall (this room was added on after the house was built) and I took them off the wall, dusted and wiped down everything - and all of this was supposed to be an overwintering spot for a couple dozen plants and now it's essentially a greenhouse with real walls. If you check my Mississippi Squad thread I'm building yet another 8 foot bench and hanging even more lights. My late uncle liked yarn and there were hundreds of pounds of old JC Penny catalogs, apparently there was a giant fire ant colony in here at one point, cobwebs everywhere. The only positive is I found 2 or 3 things I could list on eBay. If I had someone else to hold a camera for me, tearing down the shelves would have made for great YouTube footage. Lots of nails flying, a little bit of blood, lots of sailor talk, fun stuff. But this new table will easily handle 1000 pounds of soil and colocasias. 

 

Life comes at you uh, fast. 

[Las Palmas Norte]

Hopefully you don't get an infestation of gnats. That's one that I've had here, with some plants moved indoors.

[JohnAndSancho]

11 hours ago, Las Palmas Norte said:

Hopefully you don't get an infestation of gnats. That's one that I've had here, with some plants moved indoors.

Since I quit using potting soil and switched to coco coir/perlite and quit overwatering, I haven't seen a single one. But I've got some UV bug zappers that work great if I need to pull them out of the closet again. Even adding compost into my mix, not a single one. It's the way to go. It still holds on to moisture but doesn't have the decaying material the gnats love. 

It's a little bit more work breaking up the bricks and having to rinse the dust out of the perlite, but it's worth it. And there's some trial and error learning how much water to use. I use 2 10lb bricks and a 4 cu ft bag of perlite at a time so ballpark 50 gallons at a time. Use an old kitty litter bucket to rinse the perlite out and I started filling 5 gallon buckets of water to expand the bricks after I hack them up with a drainage spade, beat them with a hammer, whatever works. ~$70 and add in some compost and hand mix each pot. Not a single fungus gnat. It's beautiful. And I don't have to water nearly as often. 

I still use the cheap potting mix for the willow and crape myrtle cuttings but they stay outside. It actually looks like I know what I'm doing. I don't, but it sure as hell looks like I do.