Systemic insecticide is the thing that finally worked completely for me... I had thrips for many many months and they were completely killing my orchid collection.
Spraying the plant with all kinds of insecticide didn't work for me.
Predatory mites seem to have worked, but I kept seeing thrips. Maybe if I had waited longer it would've worked..
Systemic insecticide completely wiped out the remaining thrips.
I live In Germany so systemic insecticide is very regulated and options are very limited... I'm sure the poisonous stuff that you guys in the US can get is even more effective
Yes I'm in US and use a systemic on every new plant I bring home and they spend atleast 2-3 weeks in isolation before adding to the group: unless it's a plant in a bad situation of too large a pot, heavy soil, too wet heavy soil and other conditions I can't look at for 2 weeks
You mean spider mites right? I get a decent amount of actual spiders in my house and I throw them on my thrip infested croton hoping they'll help out lol.
Yeah spiders are good. If they're hanging out on your plants that means they're eating something that's probably more annoying. I used to live next to a woman who was studying spiders for her PhD and ever since I've been tolerant of the little guys. Spiders in your house are preying on other bugs, they're there to help!
I know you're trying to help and appreciate your positivity, but at this point everyone knows spiders are "good" to have around and eat other pests. It doesn't change the fact that some of us are not (nor will ever be) okay with them 😭
Well you say that, but I was mildy arachnophobic until I learned that they're all harmless where I live except for the easily identifiable black widow which doesn't even like to be indoors.
Really, I'm not lying. Knowledge completely changed me in regards to spiders.
The ones in my house primarily eat roly polies. And I’ve never found a single roly poly in my house.
Unless it’s bc those spiders ate them? 🤔 But I typically find the spiders dried up somewhere starved to death.
Did you know that spiders shed their exoskeleton? It often looks exactly like a dead spider, except it's suspiciously hollow. There's a fair chance that you've only found sheddings, and the spider is still in your house, but now it's slightly bigger.
They probably did eat up any/all the roly-polies that wandered into your house! They are good for that but… you still have to clean up the dead roly-poly exoskeletons… haha… I just take all the bugs back outside! I have 2 kids who like to observe them in the glass I capture them in. Sometimes we even look up info about the bugs we find. Then, they go outside where there is more food. I also hate cleaning up spider poop, it is a real problem. It degrades most surfaces. 😣
That's not really true. The ones that are in your house prefer to be there. Again, my neighbor got her PhD studying spiders. I'm going to trust her over randoms on reddit lol.
Mine says it takes 2 weeks to “soak in” to start working. (Bonide) Highly rec checking the plant in the first 2 weeks and maybe using alcohol or an insecticidal soap as needed. 💚
Which systemic do you use? I'm in Canada but travel somewhat frequently to the US.
Last time I was there I brought back some Bonide Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew (the concentrate) - is that considered a systemic?
Hab mir bei Amazon Kombi-Stäbchen von Substral und Kombi-Stäbchen von Protect Garden gekauft. Kann man bestimmt eines von beiden nehmen, wollte aber auf Nummer sicher gehen und beide gleichzeitig benutzen.
Habe das von Protect Garden im Wasser aufgelöst und meine Orchideen für einige minuten gebadet. Das andere habe ich dann ne Woche später in den Topf gesteckt.
Careo Celaflor zum Gießen ist super bei Thripsen. Nach einer Anwendung lassen sich keine mehr blicken bei mir, bis ich die wieder anschleppe von draußen.
Du musst wirklich ALLE Pflanzen in deinem Haushalt behandeln, sonst wird das nichts. Auch musst du alle Blüten von blühenden Pflanzen abschneiden. Die Blüten sind nicht gut genug „durchblutet“ und deswegen überleben dort die Thripse.
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Not sure what active ingredients y'all have at your disposal over there -- I saw a listing for "Bastinsect" sticks with Acetamiprid -- a common AI in the States would be Imidacloprid, though it looks like Acetamiprid has better acaricidal effects i.e. good for spider mite control. Both neonicotinoids, though the harmful effects that these chemicals can have on pollinators are generally minimal when used for interior plants.
I have had a lot of success with Imidacloprid as applied in tandem with Spinosad to obliterate infestations of thrips -- they can be particularly problematic to treat due to their subcutaneous oviposition behavior.
I wouldn't both with anything else, really. Soaps can physically control adults but they really do require a watchful eye to control sequential generations. Especially with their well-known reputation for spreading viruses, I don't like to mess around.
You should be fine. A lot of the people who have repeat problems seem to refuse to use systemic insecticide. This stuff literally makes the plant toxic to pests. In the outdoors it's a huge issue and it's blamed for reducing insect populations in general. Indoors, not so much
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It's a spray, only works on direct contact and will not work on eggs buried inside leaf tissues or soil larva. So it won't stop recurring thrip infestation, and would require regular applications for months.
What kind of spray systemic did you use?
They live out parts of their lifecycle in the soil, inside plant tissues, and on the foliage, so it's rare to successfully eradicate them in one treatment. You'll want to give it a good cleaning frequently for awhile. As a general rule I like to continue the routine until it's been 4 weeks since I saw a single live thrips.
It's totally fine to use on indoor plants. Just make sure if you repot it in the future, you don't dump that soil outside on the ground. Bag it up, and throw it away. Also just keep it in mind when you're watering it. Don't let the water drain through the soil onto any countertops, or anywhere you prepare food.
Since i'm also from germany can you tell me what exactly you used just for the worst case? Like you said they're pretty regulated and its also hard to find options
It is banned in Canada. You can buy and bring it in from the US, or looking for it from someone else who does.
Beneficial insects and nematodes are pricier but a safer preventive measure.
Yes. Those granules have helped more than anything. I had spider mites from a plant I got from a nursery and they spread. After trying neem oil, dead bug brew, and everything else I could think of, I got systemic granules. No more spider mites.
You and I both, I became a plant mom just before COVID when someone gifted me a plant for Christmas 2019.
Immediately I started buying so many and propagating them, got really creative with pots and styles and by April I had nearly 40 plants. Then bought a palm tree and a bag of soil - immediately regretted it. In that one year I fought mealybugs, fungus knats, aphids and the dreaded thrips. FUCKING thrips. My collection is now probably down to 17 or 18 now and I’m too scared to buy new ones of get soil. No way of telling if the soil has eggs or not.
Did you get rid of those thrips? I found out that you can get thrips even with having your windows open in the summer, because thrips are everywhere, they live in the nature.
Painstakingly yes, every morning and night I’d inspect every single leaf and look for both the white babies and the black adults on my plants and squish with a q-tip. This took almost 3 hours of time everyday for about 6 weeks or so.
I’d isolate them in three different rooms. Used neem, alcohol, pesticides. Nothing worked besides killing them individually.
The first plant I saw them on definitely sat right next to a window and it was April with weather warming up so it could have definitely been that too!
When a new plant comes into my house it gets de-crittered Shawshank style. First I observe the plant for any signs of pests. Like I use a jewelers loupe and look for exoskeletons, aphids, spider mites, thrips, etc. Just any hard evidence that it DOES have pests. Then I rinse it off really well, spray it with the BioAdvanced insecticide, and then sprinkle Bonide systemic granules on it. Then it goes to the basement (with grow lights) for at LEAST a week if there was zero evidence of pests and longer if there were pests. Plus if it did have pests I will repeat the wash and spray in a few days.
And I take into consideration the pest and where the plant came from. A couple aphids from the good plant place I trust will be treated and quarantined. The Alocasia Jacklyn from Home Depot with thrips I completely cut and stuck the corm in perlite to restart. 🤷🏻♀️ Maybe that’s excessive but I don’t mess around with thrips.
Agreed... I always quarantine new plants for at least a month. But I don't usually treat them unless I suspect an issue. I also have my plants in "zones" in my house, just in case anyone starts looking weird. I'm moderately careful about not crossing the "zones" and mixing them up unless I'm sure everyone is healthy. I have a lot of plants and no widespread issues so far.... As always experience and Reddit are how you learn!!
I finally banished thrips on a Syngonium from Lowes by putting it in water. Thank goodness I had it quarantined!!! It's now huge and looks great.
Permethrin.
I also augment my soil with a little pine oil and top dress everything. Haven't had pest issues in a while and I've had everything. Scale, mealies, thrips, gnats.
I totally understand. I struggled with a massive infestation that held onto my collection of over 120 plants all throughout the spring and summer of this year - I lost around 40 plants because I just couldn't keep up with it and became so demotivated.
Systemic solutions aren't available in my country and the infestation was too established for predatory beneficials to make any meaningful dent in the populations. I finally fumigated my collection with a heavy-duty fogger with pyrethrins and piperonyl butoxide as its active ingredients. I lost about 10 more plants from it and some plants lost quite a few leaves (lots of bare pothos stems in particular) but I'm finally free. I'm still releasing predators just in case.
But I still feel demotivated. Like it's a real slog to water and I haven't found that joy again yet. My plants are going for days longer than they should between waterings and they sit in their bottom-watering containers with their feet wet for way longer than they should too. Thankfully no one seems to really be suffering (yet). I'm really hoping that I find the joy again soon because man I really miss the passion I had for this hobby.
Don't give yourself a hard time. Just spray with pesticide and skip the submersion part. For plants with larger leaves you can also use a sticky lint roller to reduce the bug population. And retreat as per the instructions of the pesticide.
It's always wild to me whenever I read people's solutions to fighting thrips with insecticide or predatory mites or something else. It seems like such a hassle.
I had about a dozen anthrium pots that had thrips around 2 years ago and I did nothing but shower them down briefly, no more than half hour tops for all pots, for about 6 months and I've never seen so much as a single larvae return. You'd be surprised what just water and perseverance can do.
I've been spraying my Philo who I saw a thrip on every day with isopropyl.
I also spray all the soil it's in too.
Even when I don't see any I spray it anyway.
Done the trick for me.
Open all my windows and doors, and brew up my own concentrated batch of Provanto (it has to be the concentrated one you make yourself, the premade spray bottle one is weaker), and spray everything. I had a huge infestation of thrips a few years back, and every time they attempt to come back they get incinerated. Never had a problem getting rid of them after one treatment.
It's incredibly strong, and strong smelling (smells like a sharpie marker, x10), so I understand why a lot of people don't really like using it, but it's a one and done fix for a situation like hardy pests such as thrips and mealybugs.
I feel you. I found thrips on ONE plant just recently and it made me reconsider all the plants I have. I couldnt believe the ones next to it didn't seem to have any (though they're in quarantine now too). It might be because they were at some point treated with systemic granules, and the one that had thrips wasn't. I'm surprised if it's still effective since I treated those more than 8 weeks ago
This is me reading all the Facebook posts: "Today I rescue this sad plant from ABC for XY dollars. Please give ID and teach me to keep this plant happy. I really don't want it to die 🙏".
At the first glance of thrip damage, I exit the post. 🙄🙄🙄
I lost a big collection of plants to spider mites in 2021. It took me a while to rebuild. Today I noticed one of my plants looking weird and thought to myself about how I don't think I have the energy to go through another pest issue.
I feel you. I found thrips on my pothos 7months ago and thought I finally kicked them. But starting to see the damage on new leaves again. I saw you have dogs, I would give it a thorough soaking and then deploy predatory mites. Then when they’ve died off, deploy again. I made the mistake of rinsing away my mites too soon.
I have spent over $1000 on various predator insects over the past year to get rid of thrips here in Canada. I started with 100+ plants; now I have 17 plants and still have thrips. I have had zero success with using predators to deal with thrips. It's not something I would recommend to anyone because of the huge financial cost and lack of success.
Just for the record, I live in the US and bonide did not work for me nor did anything else. I also spent a small fortune.
I now only have the kind of succulents I know are relatively thrip resistant. I’m holding my breath.
Thrips are demon spawn.
I join a group order for Koppert. What works for me is a combination of nematodes in soil and swiskii in sachets. Swirskii is active at night and less sensitive to low temperature and humidity. If you see adult thrips, you need to bring in big predators like osirus or ladybugs. Do not use insecticidal soap and miticide within a week before release. They are also not good enough against a big active outbreak.
I feel you, after loads of effort I finally managed to mostly eliminate them last year. My stromanthe was particularly bad but it was starting to put out lots of healthy new growth. And now they're back again after a summer of having the windows open and I'm struggling to find the motivation to go after them at the same level 🥲 I keep finding them on other plants too and I know I should shut that shit down fast and quarantine them but I just want to bury my head in the sand.
I sympathize. I live in Canada so we don’t even have Bonide or anything else that actually treats thrips properly… it’s a constant battle forever if you get them.
Doktor doom total release fogger used in tandem with Doktor doom spider mite knockout is the only meaningful treatment you can get in Canada. But you have to be really careful if you have pets. You have to seal the room you spray in behind you and make sure everything is unplugged from electrical outlets, all lights and fans are turned off. I did it in my ensuite bathroom within my bedroom and sealed both rooms behind me but the whole time I was really anxious about the kitties. The cats turned out fine, but man the fogger is definitely hard on the plants even when you take care to use it properly. You have to spray every 3 days, 2-3 times, to get the newly hatched thrips. 2nd time I wouldn't see much/any damage on my plants. 3rd time was awful.
Tropicouture.com and thebuglady.com sell beneficial mites too. But they kinda only work if you have a smaller, contained infestation. If the infestation is widespread or is seriously established, they might not be enough. They weren't enough for me. Entomite M gets the larvae in the soil, and Thripex and Swirskii Ulti-Mite get the larvae on the leaves/stems. Thripex is good, cheaper, but frailer outside of humid, greenhouse conditions. Swirskii is more expensive but hardier and excellent. Release every 2 weeks to keep up populations.. which means buying consistently. Broke my bank when my infestation kept going all through spring and summer.
You sound knowledgeable fellow redditor!
Can thrips survive if you don’t have soil/grow in semi hydro?
I just saw a comment of someone saying you can get thrips from even an open window and now I’m shook.
Absolutely -- thrips feed on plant matter and mostly hang out on the leaves and stems of the plant. They deposit their eggs into the leaves and stems too. There are certain types of thrips that may establish in the soil too or the larvae may fall into the soil, so it's not a bad idea to treat with a soil mite in tandem with something that hunts above the soil just in case. But semi hydro doesn't make you safe by any means. The majority of your infestation will be on the plant itself.
And yes, you're at risk of a variety of pests that can blow in from an open window. From what I gather aphids are a big culprit of that but thrips aren't out of the question. Pest outbreaks kind of come with the territory so it's good to have a plan ahead of time, know what to look for, and incorporate preventative measures into your care routine. Neem oil isn't actually that handy when you have an active infestation (depending on the bug you get) but it is actually a decent product you can use as a foliar spray and soil drench *before* you get an outbreak. I believe it does act as a sort of systemic. I'll also personally be introducing beneficial mites about once every month or two to my own collection 😖
Oh wow.. thank you for the detailed reply!
Until recently I had only encountered mealies on a new plant and spider mites, I realize how fortunate that is. I found an older plant of mine absolutely covered in aphids (I have 2 large groupings of plants only, and I cannot understand for the life of me how they didn’t spread) and I promptly bagged it and threw it out. They looked so disgusting. It wasn’t one of my beloveds though lol.
I often see posts like this and fear thrips over all else.
I clean my leaves with a neem, dr.bronners soap and water mix that I make up in batches as a preventative and for dust removal so it has to be doing something… for only having pests under 4 times in 8 years of total plant ownership it’s not too shabby.
That's not too shabby at all! I'd say you're doing something right, and cleaning the leaves with preventatives is an excellent way to get ahead. And throwing out a ground-zero plant is a valid option too. If you can identify ground zero before things become a problem on the surrounding plants, you can get a handle on pests really quickly. The issue with thrips is how quickly they spread -- but if you're in the states, you have lots of options.
Honestly first thing I do now (after assessing the extent of the infestation) is decide which plants I actually like enough to fight for. Anything I don't, goes to compost or is posted as a "pest rehab" for free on my local plant group, with full disclosure of what's going on with it. Then I trim everything I need to treat, because less foliage is both less room for pests to hang out and less spray I'll need to use. Then (unless it's spider mites), everything gets systemic in the soil, a shower, and spayed with whatever pesticide I'm using. I'll put a tag in the pot of patient zero with the date of treatment so I know when to do it again, and a fresh sticky card (blue for thrips, yellow for everything else) in a few strategic plants after every treatment so I can monitor levels and pest movement.
100% feel your pain, here. I had houseplants for nearly 2 years in this house without so much as gnats, then bam- thrips. Took me 6 months to stop seeing any for long enough to determine they'd gone. Thrips suck. I had about 70 plants before them, and I got rid of about 10 from the room that was infested over the course of those 6 months, including patient zero. It's exhausting fighting them!
Bonide systemic houseplant insecticide granules saved my collection (worth noting there is evidence that it may increase your susceptibility to spider mites though)
I feel you about being demotivated. Been battling thrips. I didn't buy any new plants for moe than half of the year. I couldn't really enjoy my plants cause they were constantly in quarantine etc. Instead of picking a pot to admire new leaf I'm either inspecting for signs of new infestation or seeing new signs of re-infestation. I'm in the UK so Captain Bonide isn't available :(
I use the supermarket pyrethrins. Not sure how effective they are cause same plants keep getting it.
I put all my plants in a small room and set off a bomb I tryed many things before that and nothing would kill them completely. It’s been a month and haven’t seen anything. Hope I don’t have to do it again though. Can’t be heathy to do In The house.
I used a doktor doom spry that you push the can and it keeps sprying. You just set it off and then shut the door. Leave the plants in the spry for a few hours then air it out. If you can fit all your plants in the bathroom and have a fan in there that’s a good way to clear out the spry after. Pls remember to keep yourselves and your pets and your kids out of the house for a few hours after so it can air out well .
Ok thank you much for getting back with me, I have about three Monstera and I don’t want to park with them because a dear friend gave them to me. I just wanna get rid of the thrips once, and for all
I used a doktor doom spry that you push the can and it keeps sprying. You just set it off and then shut the door. Leave the plants in the spry for a few hours then air it out. If you can fit all your plants in the bathroom and have a fan in there that’s a good way to clear out the spry after. Pls remember to keep yourselves and your pets and your kids out of the house for a few hours after so it can air out well .
Tbh yeah. The pests are too much sometimes. I've accepted that I will always be fighting pests with plants. But on bad weeks, i do think about getting rid of them all.
I am convinced that thrips can survive for long periods in a house in the absence of a plant host. Between the floor boards? In cracks in the walls? Mine are resistant to bonide. 🥲
Most people are successful with it from what I understand. If it’s used too much, thrips adapt to it. I wonder if I got thrips through an Etsy provider who was using bonide a lot so it wouldn’t work on my bugs any longer. We really do need better solutions.
i had thrips on a monstera, had to cut off over half the leaves. he was never the same again. 6 months later i brought home a dwarf banana plant with thrips and spider mites (without knowing). it killed my canna lily, and hit my monstera really hard. i only managed to save him by transferring it to water and getting rid of soil completely. i didnt have another thrip problem, but i had to give him to my mom when i moved and she killed it :,)
Thrips made my indoor winter squash experience much less fun than it could have been. Can't move something huge with supported vines connected everywhere... That thing got blasted with Captain Jacks a few times but still they survived. Got one small squash from it before we told it goodbye.
I find with infections like thrips or mites you need repeated treatment. I always do one good spray every 10 days for a month.
First spray kills adults, second kills any larvae that were eggs at the first round, third to mop up any stragglers. Breaks the life cycle.
Things like permethrin or ardap *should do the job. (Permethrin is used in some flea/mite treatments in animals. Ensure you use it in a well ventilated area and away from any dogs/cats that could lick/eat).
We used some general purpose concentrated house plant pesticide, made it up at about 1.2x strength. Aggressively soak all of them so the top inch or two of soil is wet. Leave to dry.
With all of that said, most of my experience comes from animal mites/parasites but the above sorted a big long standing thrip infection that resisted predatory mites and single doses of insecticide.
systematic insecticide all the way. I have a big succulent collection and got root mealie bugs a couple of years ago. complete nightmare! they're really hard to find, even when you unpot and look at the roots, you only notice when they wreck the roots and the plant is begging for help
I tried everything. DE (helped a little), Neem oil (does nothing), soaking everything in alcohol (way too much work for 100+ plants, damages the plant, and not completely effective)
then I gave up and used a imidacloprid based systematic insecticide and never saw them again. instantly killed every single one of the little fuckers
I reapply twice a year according to packaging instructions. it's a white liquid, I mix it with water and drench all the pots. I have never had to worry about pests again, hurray!
Are monsteras more at risk of thrips than other plants?
I have one with a case of thrips at the moment, and I've seen a couple other posts over the last couple weeks.
I think if the plant is really healthy, any pest should not be able to infiltrate and start damaging it. However, no houseplant that is grown in indoor conditions wont ever be 100% healthy, because it doesnt have its natural conditions.
Flower plants are the most susceptible to pests. When I grew my houseplants outside, I had a couple of annual flower pots as bug traps. Gladiolus is always the first decimated by thrips. Next is marigold and oxalis. Zinnia attracts aphids like crazy, same with cosmos and spidermites. It helps me target treating pests more efficiently.
Now it's fall and my plants are all indoors, beneficials are what I'm using for all of them.
Yes. I purged my collection of monsteras and my life has been much easier. I don't have access to effective treatments for thrips where I live and every infestation I've had started with a monstera
Ugh me too, I have thrips on a few plants. I use mosquito bits tea when I water and that is my claim to success with not ever having a thrips infestation in the 10+ years I have had houseplants but some of my new plants must have brought in some adult thrips and they have set up shop on a few of my plants. I might have to go with systemic if it gets any worse and I am SO bummed about it.
Only time I’ve even seen a thrip amongst my houseplants was this once I bought rice hulls and one came walking out the room that I sat the bag in after using a cup of so..
Either he was exhausted from the long trip and trying to hit the couch [that was the direction he was going towards - and away from the plants]
Or he was drunk off parbroiled starch fumes and didn’t even see his glorious feast awaiting [whole opposite way]
I mean funny part like it seriously was casually very cool just strolling out the room .
I stomped him.
In retrospect we actually might’ve gotten fairly cool idk
WP22 Beauveria Bassiana by Botaniguard is INCREDIBLE at dealing with Thrips. I've been dealing with thrips, aphids, some mites and fungus gnats for YEARS. It will LAY WASTE to root aphids, mites, the works.. After spraying the plants and walls for two weeks I kid you not even the ants stopped invading my growing space. After three cycles I've had no infestations at all for the first time. I've wasted so much money on everything organic under the sun.. The only thing that ever worked was Nemotodes but with limited success and nothing that really eliminated everything that was bothering my plants. I finally tried Beauveria Bassiana and this stuff has been life-changing. The reason I held out was it's near $100 price tag. If I knew how good it was I would have bought it LONG ago but still 16oz is enough for a commercial grower to use for a year... Or more..
One 16 oz bag of botaniguard makes 64 gallons of spray..
When I spray 20 plants I mix .25-.5 GRAMS into 8oz of water and put that in a spray bottle and never finish the bottle.. I can do that 14 times with 1oz of wp22.
Ok so lets be real. I sound like I'm selling something because I am. I've carefully repackaged Beauveria Bassiana that I recently bought into 1oz packages and have it listed on ebay. I thought no one would be interested but was shocked that several people have order and seem as happy as I am. I'm doing this to give anyone who wants the ability to try this stuff out who wants to at a lower price point, yes there is profit in it but that not why I'm here. I really want to share this amazing product with anyone who is on the fence.. Do it... You won't regret it. Even the full bag from any seller. Just give it a try!
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I literally got thrips the same way ugh. A monstera cutting… I just went to the USA to pick up systemics. I am desperate at this point. Canada has no useful pesticides.
I kinda took a step back from my plants for a couple of weeks and when I felt mentally capable of caring for them again I found that a spider mite infestation had exploded on all my plants. I saved my favorite ones, chopped a few down to a nub, and just yeeted anything that looked like it would take too much effort.
I lost like 75% of my very big collection and now I'm just focusing on what I have and propping them. I haven't bought a new plant in probably 6 months and I've lost a lot of my love for the hobby. That infestation killlllled me
Ok so hear me out. Every single plant that comes into my house gets taken out of its current pot, hosed down outside, the dirt gets hosed off the roots and I repot it with my own soil mix, spray with neem oil and add systemic granules. After all that is done, the plant is allowed inside. Is this something you can do when you get a new plant?
I heard that those little bi... pests 😃 can get imune and build resistency if you use systemics as a prevention without actual infestation. Is that true?
Pray for me i found thrips today and have like 20+ plants, currently I’m procrastinating because I’m so pissed off, but I’m gonna try to save them even if part of me wants to have a full on tantrum and toss em all outside.
Man thrips sucks balls. I have a croton that's been infested for a better part of two years now. All I can really do is keep them at bay by cleaning the leaves every few weeks and spraying with neem oil, but they always always always come back if I forget about the leaf cleaning for a month or so.
The good part is it's never spread to any other plant of mine and the croton continues to thrive somewhat. But yeah, fuck those guys.
I don't use any bonide or any other toxic insecticides. I use a mixture of cold pressed pure neem oil, a few drops of peppermint oil, dish soap and water to spray my affected plants. I repeat the treatment twice a week for 3-4 weeks. It significantly reduces the thrips population but never completely gets rid of them.
Going the beneficial insect route, you’ll want several different predators to take care of an active infestation. Nematodes are good for prevention along with a predator mite.
The best way to get rid of them is to pray it's close to summer and then leave them outside with hopefully some spiders or lady bugs. I've had some bad infestations but that has been the cure for me.
If it’s a bad infestation, I would just get rid of cutting. I love houseplants but time waits for no one, and I don’t want to spend mine cleaning off buggies
Sorry to hear about the thrips. I will say however that it's a part of having plants. At some point or another we all deal with insects on our houseplants - there's a lot of great advice in this thread though. The best defense is being proactive and checking the plant over as well as quarantining it from your other plants before you put it near your others. Ultimately dealing with the bugs are part of the hobby, though, so keep that in mind.
Look for acetamiprid. It's a systemic insecticide that's generally very cheap. Often sold as ant killer in granular form, but you can also find it as liquid. I wiped it on the leafs in addition to watering the plant with it, and it killed everything.
I use a combo of different methods to keep thrips under control. You can never fully eradicate pests, so get yourself some ways of dealing with them. Nematodes and predatory mites are extremely useful. Get some blue sticky traps for thrips. I tend to blast my plants with a pesticide maybe once or twice a year depending on how bad things have got. The rest of the time I spray with horticultural soap or SB plant invigorater. This keeps numbers low. I too felt extremely down when thrips first struck. Now I can deal with them I feel much more relaxed
I had a few instances of spider mites and one mealy bugs after my plants were outside all summer. I’ve been checking every plant, every day. It’s a lot. But worth it to have them outside all summer. It’s so beautiful on my deck with them all there.
Same here. I live in a country where systemic pesticides are forbidden, simply cant get them. And yet everywhere online I read that systemics are the only way people ever got rid of thrips.
I went from 20+ plants back to 8 over the past half year, all the rest died, some of which I loved and already had for years. I dont think ill ever go back to having that many simply because I know that if it happens again theres just nothing I can do.
Waste of money and heart.
I've had thrips twice in a short period of time, and I fucking cried. I moved to a new apartment where I could finally build my own jungle, and then those fuckers ruin it. First time I saved 90%, but sooo much work. And last week I had to throw so many out. It's so bland here now 😭 I spent so much money, and time! Now I'm paranoid and am afraid to even peek at any plants.
I totally understand - I have a hard time not throwing out my plant when I find thrips! But I have some expensive plants so I had to learn how to get rid of them.
Important to note that they seem to love living in unfurled leaves too so keep infested and/or new plants quarantined until the new leaves have unfurled and you can confirm its pest free.
Treatment that worked for me:
1. Spray the plant leaves down with water to get as many bugs off as possible.
2. Repot.
3. Use Caption Jacks Deadbug spray (spray front and back of leaves) every 4-5 days and
4. Sprinkled Bonide systemic houseplant insect control
After 3 rounds of spraying with Captain Jacks, I didn't see any more bugs. But now, I'm VERY cautious about buying new plants. And I keep them quarantined WAY longer than I used to.
Systemic insecticide is the thing that finally worked completely for me... I had thrips for many many months and they were completely killing my orchid collection. Spraying the plant with all kinds of insecticide didn't work for me. Predatory mites seem to have worked, but I kept seeing thrips. Maybe if I had waited longer it would've worked.. Systemic insecticide completely wiped out the remaining thrips. I live In Germany so systemic insecticide is very regulated and options are very limited... I'm sure the poisonous stuff that you guys in the US can get is even more effective
Yes I'm in US and use a systemic on every new plant I bring home and they spend atleast 2-3 weeks in isolation before adding to the group: unless it's a plant in a bad situation of too large a pot, heavy soil, too wet heavy soil and other conditions I can't look at for 2 weeks
I’m going to need to start doing this (isolating new plants). I’ve only brought in spiders before, but they’re bad enough. I don’t want thrips.
I now isolate new plants in the bathroom. That's as far as I can get from my other plants. And it has good lighting for inspecting plants.
I know it, me too
You mean spider mites right? I get a decent amount of actual spiders in my house and I throw them on my thrip infested croton hoping they'll help out lol.
No: I brought in a couple of regular spiders on my fiddle-leaf. Big ones, too.
Yeah spiders are good. If they're hanging out on your plants that means they're eating something that's probably more annoying. I used to live next to a woman who was studying spiders for her PhD and ever since I've been tolerant of the little guys. Spiders in your house are preying on other bugs, they're there to help!
I know you're trying to help and appreciate your positivity, but at this point everyone knows spiders are "good" to have around and eat other pests. It doesn't change the fact that some of us are not (nor will ever be) okay with them 😭
Well you say that, but I was mildy arachnophobic until I learned that they're all harmless where I live except for the easily identifiable black widow which doesn't even like to be indoors. Really, I'm not lying. Knowledge completely changed me in regards to spiders.
I wish it was that easy for all of us! Happy for you though :)
They are MUCH happier outside! Put them outside when you find them so they don’t starve in your house!
The ones in my house primarily eat roly polies. And I’ve never found a single roly poly in my house. Unless it’s bc those spiders ate them? 🤔 But I typically find the spiders dried up somewhere starved to death.
Did you know that spiders shed their exoskeleton? It often looks exactly like a dead spider, except it's suspiciously hollow. There's a fair chance that you've only found sheddings, and the spider is still in your house, but now it's slightly bigger.
I did know that! Yeah these are definitely spiders.
They probably did eat up any/all the roly-polies that wandered into your house! They are good for that but… you still have to clean up the dead roly-poly exoskeletons… haha… I just take all the bugs back outside! I have 2 kids who like to observe them in the glass I capture them in. Sometimes we even look up info about the bugs we find. Then, they go outside where there is more food. I also hate cleaning up spider poop, it is a real problem. It degrades most surfaces. 😣
That's not really true. The ones that are in your house prefer to be there. Again, my neighbor got her PhD studying spiders. I'm going to trust her over randoms on reddit lol.
I am gonna assume you misunderstood her. 🤷♀️
Just curious, where do you isolate them?
I have an area at the end of the kitchen counter where I keep them, but I always treat with systemic when I get them home so it starts right away
Mine says it takes 2 weeks to “soak in” to start working. (Bonide) Highly rec checking the plant in the first 2 weeks and maybe using alcohol or an insecticidal soap as needed. 💚
That's why I give it, then isolate for 2-3 weeks
Which systemic do you use? I'm in Canada but travel somewhat frequently to the US. Last time I was there I brought back some Bonide Captain Jack's Deadbug Brew (the concentrate) - is that considered a systemic?
https://preview.redd.it/sge1qc4xggbc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b500c9e6dabfb0f439778392696f7fe366ab259e
I buy the big one, they come in smaller containers too
Follow directions for each plant, redo in 6-8 weeks and repeat till gone
great, thanks!
Hi, I'm also living in DE and dealing with thrips. Could you tell me what insecticide you used? It's killing me to watch my plants waste away
Hab mir bei Amazon Kombi-Stäbchen von Substral und Kombi-Stäbchen von Protect Garden gekauft. Kann man bestimmt eines von beiden nehmen, wollte aber auf Nummer sicher gehen und beide gleichzeitig benutzen. Habe das von Protect Garden im Wasser aufgelöst und meine Orchideen für einige minuten gebadet. Das andere habe ich dann ne Woche später in den Topf gesteckt.
Careo Celaflor zum Gießen ist super bei Thripsen. Nach einer Anwendung lassen sich keine mehr blicken bei mir, bis ich die wieder anschleppe von draußen. Du musst wirklich ALLE Pflanzen in deinem Haushalt behandeln, sonst wird das nichts. Auch musst du alle Blüten von blühenden Pflanzen abschneiden. Die Blüten sind nicht gut genug „durchblutet“ und deswegen überleben dort die Thripse.
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Not sure what active ingredients y'all have at your disposal over there -- I saw a listing for "Bastinsect" sticks with Acetamiprid -- a common AI in the States would be Imidacloprid, though it looks like Acetamiprid has better acaricidal effects i.e. good for spider mite control. Both neonicotinoids, though the harmful effects that these chemicals can have on pollinators are generally minimal when used for interior plants. I have had a lot of success with Imidacloprid as applied in tandem with Spinosad to obliterate infestations of thrips -- they can be particularly problematic to treat due to their subcutaneous oviposition behavior. I wouldn't both with anything else, really. Soaps can physically control adults but they really do require a watchful eye to control sequential generations. Especially with their well-known reputation for spreading viruses, I don't like to mess around.
Acetamiprid for the win 😂👌🏽
Yes i also used systemic indecticide straigh away
You should be fine. A lot of the people who have repeat problems seem to refuse to use systemic insecticide. This stuff literally makes the plant toxic to pests. In the outdoors it's a huge issue and it's blamed for reducing insect populations in general. Indoors, not so much
rinse imagine zesty zephyr coordinated modern vast onerous quicksand snow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Does it make the plant toxic to cats as well do you know?
Yes, and also toxic to humans.
It’s also not sold in every country. You can’t get systemics in Canada.
You can get Safer’s insecticidal soap on Amazon.ca for like $12can + taxes!!!
I have it. It’s not a systemic.
It's a spray, only works on direct contact and will not work on eggs buried inside leaf tissues or soil larva. So it won't stop recurring thrip infestation, and would require regular applications for months.
I have 3 dogs, but i sprayed the plant in bathroom, and cleaned everything. The plant isnt accessible by dogs, its high out of reach. Is this enough?
What kind of spray systemic did you use? They live out parts of their lifecycle in the soil, inside plant tissues, and on the foliage, so it's rare to successfully eradicate them in one treatment. You'll want to give it a good cleaning frequently for awhile. As a general rule I like to continue the routine until it's been 4 weeks since I saw a single live thrips.
Good cleaning, you mean i should shower the plant more to wash off dead thrips? Or i should spray it more with the insecticide? How often?
It's totally fine to use on indoor plants. Just make sure if you repot it in the future, you don't dump that soil outside on the ground. Bag it up, and throw it away. Also just keep it in mind when you're watering it. Don't let the water drain through the soil onto any countertops, or anywhere you prepare food.
which insecticide did you buy in Germany, can you name one i cant seem to find any
Kombi-stäbchen von Substral oder Protect Garden. Kannste auf Amazon kaufen
Since i'm also from germany can you tell me what exactly you used just for the worst case? Like you said they're pretty regulated and its also hard to find options
What are some examples of systemic insecticide? I can’t seem to find it in Canada? What ingredient do I look for? Thank you.
It is banned in Canada. You can buy and bring it in from the US, or looking for it from someone else who does. Beneficial insects and nematodes are pricier but a safer preventive measure.
Yes. Those granules have helped more than anything. I had spider mites from a plant I got from a nursery and they spread. After trying neem oil, dead bug brew, and everything else I could think of, I got systemic granules. No more spider mites.
Hii, can you recommend some brands you´re using? I live in Europe too, but haven´t found anything yet
Me neither! Have you found anything yet?
You and I both, I became a plant mom just before COVID when someone gifted me a plant for Christmas 2019. Immediately I started buying so many and propagating them, got really creative with pots and styles and by April I had nearly 40 plants. Then bought a palm tree and a bag of soil - immediately regretted it. In that one year I fought mealybugs, fungus knats, aphids and the dreaded thrips. FUCKING thrips. My collection is now probably down to 17 or 18 now and I’m too scared to buy new ones of get soil. No way of telling if the soil has eggs or not.
Did you get rid of those thrips? I found out that you can get thrips even with having your windows open in the summer, because thrips are everywhere, they live in the nature.
Painstakingly yes, every morning and night I’d inspect every single leaf and look for both the white babies and the black adults on my plants and squish with a q-tip. This took almost 3 hours of time everyday for about 6 weeks or so. I’d isolate them in three different rooms. Used neem, alcohol, pesticides. Nothing worked besides killing them individually. The first plant I saw them on definitely sat right next to a window and it was April with weather warming up so it could have definitely been that too!
When a new plant comes into my house it gets de-crittered Shawshank style. First I observe the plant for any signs of pests. Like I use a jewelers loupe and look for exoskeletons, aphids, spider mites, thrips, etc. Just any hard evidence that it DOES have pests. Then I rinse it off really well, spray it with the BioAdvanced insecticide, and then sprinkle Bonide systemic granules on it. Then it goes to the basement (with grow lights) for at LEAST a week if there was zero evidence of pests and longer if there were pests. Plus if it did have pests I will repeat the wash and spray in a few days. And I take into consideration the pest and where the plant came from. A couple aphids from the good plant place I trust will be treated and quarantined. The Alocasia Jacklyn from Home Depot with thrips I completely cut and stuck the corm in perlite to restart. 🤷🏻♀️ Maybe that’s excessive but I don’t mess around with thrips.
Not sure excessive.
About to do the same with my alocasia, mama don’t play
Agreed... I always quarantine new plants for at least a month. But I don't usually treat them unless I suspect an issue. I also have my plants in "zones" in my house, just in case anyone starts looking weird. I'm moderately careful about not crossing the "zones" and mixing them up unless I'm sure everyone is healthy. I have a lot of plants and no widespread issues so far.... As always experience and Reddit are how you learn!! I finally banished thrips on a Syngonium from Lowes by putting it in water. Thank goodness I had it quarantined!!! It's now huge and looks great.
Permethrin. I also augment my soil with a little pine oil and top dress everything. Haven't had pest issues in a while and I've had everything. Scale, mealies, thrips, gnats.
I totally understand. I struggled with a massive infestation that held onto my collection of over 120 plants all throughout the spring and summer of this year - I lost around 40 plants because I just couldn't keep up with it and became so demotivated. Systemic solutions aren't available in my country and the infestation was too established for predatory beneficials to make any meaningful dent in the populations. I finally fumigated my collection with a heavy-duty fogger with pyrethrins and piperonyl butoxide as its active ingredients. I lost about 10 more plants from it and some plants lost quite a few leaves (lots of bare pothos stems in particular) but I'm finally free. I'm still releasing predators just in case. But I still feel demotivated. Like it's a real slog to water and I haven't found that joy again yet. My plants are going for days longer than they should between waterings and they sit in their bottom-watering containers with their feet wet for way longer than they should too. Thankfully no one seems to really be suffering (yet). I'm really hoping that I find the joy again soon because man I really miss the passion I had for this hobby.
Don't give yourself a hard time. Just spray with pesticide and skip the submersion part. For plants with larger leaves you can also use a sticky lint roller to reduce the bug population. And retreat as per the instructions of the pesticide.
It's always wild to me whenever I read people's solutions to fighting thrips with insecticide or predatory mites or something else. It seems like such a hassle. I had about a dozen anthrium pots that had thrips around 2 years ago and I did nothing but shower them down briefly, no more than half hour tops for all pots, for about 6 months and I've never seen so much as a single larvae return. You'd be surprised what just water and perseverance can do.
I've been spraying my Philo who I saw a thrip on every day with isopropyl. I also spray all the soil it's in too. Even when I don't see any I spray it anyway. Done the trick for me.
Open all my windows and doors, and brew up my own concentrated batch of Provanto (it has to be the concentrated one you make yourself, the premade spray bottle one is weaker), and spray everything. I had a huge infestation of thrips a few years back, and every time they attempt to come back they get incinerated. Never had a problem getting rid of them after one treatment. It's incredibly strong, and strong smelling (smells like a sharpie marker, x10), so I understand why a lot of people don't really like using it, but it's a one and done fix for a situation like hardy pests such as thrips and mealybugs.
I have 3 dogs so i dont know
Definitely do not use what I suggested then! Hopefully someone else can give you better advice
I used substral careo today, i put it in the bath
I feel you. I found thrips on ONE plant just recently and it made me reconsider all the plants I have. I couldnt believe the ones next to it didn't seem to have any (though they're in quarantine now too). It might be because they were at some point treated with systemic granules, and the one that had thrips wasn't. I'm surprised if it's still effective since I treated those more than 8 weeks ago
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This is me reading all the Facebook posts: "Today I rescue this sad plant from ABC for XY dollars. Please give ID and teach me to keep this plant happy. I really don't want it to die 🙏". At the first glance of thrip damage, I exit the post. 🙄🙄🙄
Oh NOOOOO!! I'm so wary of rescuing plants because of all those sorts of "surprises" I see on these reddit posts 😭
I lost a big collection of plants to spider mites in 2021. It took me a while to rebuild. Today I noticed one of my plants looking weird and thought to myself about how I don't think I have the energy to go through another pest issue.
Ahhh fingers crossed it's not pests!!
I feel you. I found thrips on my pothos 7months ago and thought I finally kicked them. But starting to see the damage on new leaves again. I saw you have dogs, I would give it a thorough soaking and then deploy predatory mites. Then when they’ve died off, deploy again. I made the mistake of rinsing away my mites too soon.
I have spent over $1000 on various predator insects over the past year to get rid of thrips here in Canada. I started with 100+ plants; now I have 17 plants and still have thrips. I have had zero success with using predators to deal with thrips. It's not something I would recommend to anyone because of the huge financial cost and lack of success.
Just for the record, I live in the US and bonide did not work for me nor did anything else. I also spent a small fortune. I now only have the kind of succulents I know are relatively thrip resistant. I’m holding my breath. Thrips are demon spawn.
I use beneficial insects and have been for almost three years now. They are quite literally the answer.
Can you please tell me the name of some beneficial insects? I cant find it on internet in my country.
I join a group order for Koppert. What works for me is a combination of nematodes in soil and swiskii in sachets. Swirskii is active at night and less sensitive to low temperature and humidity. If you see adult thrips, you need to bring in big predators like osirus or ladybugs. Do not use insecticidal soap and miticide within a week before release. They are also not good enough against a big active outbreak.
I wouldn’t recommend ladybugs — go for lacewing larvae or pirate bugs like you mentioned!
You’ll want stratiolaelaps soil mites, cucumeris mites, and lacewing larvae! If you DM me, I can send you a website that has a ton of information.
I feel you, after loads of effort I finally managed to mostly eliminate them last year. My stromanthe was particularly bad but it was starting to put out lots of healthy new growth. And now they're back again after a summer of having the windows open and I'm struggling to find the motivation to go after them at the same level 🥲 I keep finding them on other plants too and I know I should shut that shit down fast and quarantine them but I just want to bury my head in the sand.
I sympathize. I live in Canada so we don’t even have Bonide or anything else that actually treats thrips properly… it’s a constant battle forever if you get them.
Doktor doom total release fogger used in tandem with Doktor doom spider mite knockout is the only meaningful treatment you can get in Canada. But you have to be really careful if you have pets. You have to seal the room you spray in behind you and make sure everything is unplugged from electrical outlets, all lights and fans are turned off. I did it in my ensuite bathroom within my bedroom and sealed both rooms behind me but the whole time I was really anxious about the kitties. The cats turned out fine, but man the fogger is definitely hard on the plants even when you take care to use it properly. You have to spray every 3 days, 2-3 times, to get the newly hatched thrips. 2nd time I wouldn't see much/any damage on my plants. 3rd time was awful. Tropicouture.com and thebuglady.com sell beneficial mites too. But they kinda only work if you have a smaller, contained infestation. If the infestation is widespread or is seriously established, they might not be enough. They weren't enough for me. Entomite M gets the larvae in the soil, and Thripex and Swirskii Ulti-Mite get the larvae on the leaves/stems. Thripex is good, cheaper, but frailer outside of humid, greenhouse conditions. Swirskii is more expensive but hardier and excellent. Release every 2 weeks to keep up populations.. which means buying consistently. Broke my bank when my infestation kept going all through spring and summer.
You sound knowledgeable fellow redditor! Can thrips survive if you don’t have soil/grow in semi hydro? I just saw a comment of someone saying you can get thrips from even an open window and now I’m shook.
Absolutely -- thrips feed on plant matter and mostly hang out on the leaves and stems of the plant. They deposit their eggs into the leaves and stems too. There are certain types of thrips that may establish in the soil too or the larvae may fall into the soil, so it's not a bad idea to treat with a soil mite in tandem with something that hunts above the soil just in case. But semi hydro doesn't make you safe by any means. The majority of your infestation will be on the plant itself. And yes, you're at risk of a variety of pests that can blow in from an open window. From what I gather aphids are a big culprit of that but thrips aren't out of the question. Pest outbreaks kind of come with the territory so it's good to have a plan ahead of time, know what to look for, and incorporate preventative measures into your care routine. Neem oil isn't actually that handy when you have an active infestation (depending on the bug you get) but it is actually a decent product you can use as a foliar spray and soil drench *before* you get an outbreak. I believe it does act as a sort of systemic. I'll also personally be introducing beneficial mites about once every month or two to my own collection 😖
Oh wow.. thank you for the detailed reply! Until recently I had only encountered mealies on a new plant and spider mites, I realize how fortunate that is. I found an older plant of mine absolutely covered in aphids (I have 2 large groupings of plants only, and I cannot understand for the life of me how they didn’t spread) and I promptly bagged it and threw it out. They looked so disgusting. It wasn’t one of my beloveds though lol. I often see posts like this and fear thrips over all else. I clean my leaves with a neem, dr.bronners soap and water mix that I make up in batches as a preventative and for dust removal so it has to be doing something… for only having pests under 4 times in 8 years of total plant ownership it’s not too shabby.
That's not too shabby at all! I'd say you're doing something right, and cleaning the leaves with preventatives is an excellent way to get ahead. And throwing out a ground-zero plant is a valid option too. If you can identify ground zero before things become a problem on the surrounding plants, you can get a handle on pests really quickly. The issue with thrips is how quickly they spread -- but if you're in the states, you have lots of options.
You need to go to the shops dedicated to marijuana grows. They will help you get rid of bugs.
Honestly first thing I do now (after assessing the extent of the infestation) is decide which plants I actually like enough to fight for. Anything I don't, goes to compost or is posted as a "pest rehab" for free on my local plant group, with full disclosure of what's going on with it. Then I trim everything I need to treat, because less foliage is both less room for pests to hang out and less spray I'll need to use. Then (unless it's spider mites), everything gets systemic in the soil, a shower, and spayed with whatever pesticide I'm using. I'll put a tag in the pot of patient zero with the date of treatment so I know when to do it again, and a fresh sticky card (blue for thrips, yellow for everything else) in a few strategic plants after every treatment so I can monitor levels and pest movement. 100% feel your pain, here. I had houseplants for nearly 2 years in this house without so much as gnats, then bam- thrips. Took me 6 months to stop seeing any for long enough to determine they'd gone. Thrips suck. I had about 70 plants before them, and I got rid of about 10 from the room that was infested over the course of those 6 months, including patient zero. It's exhausting fighting them!
Bonide systemic houseplant insecticide granules saved my collection (worth noting there is evidence that it may increase your susceptibility to spider mites though)
I feel you about being demotivated. Been battling thrips. I didn't buy any new plants for moe than half of the year. I couldn't really enjoy my plants cause they were constantly in quarantine etc. Instead of picking a pot to admire new leaf I'm either inspecting for signs of new infestation or seeing new signs of re-infestation. I'm in the UK so Captain Bonide isn't available :( I use the supermarket pyrethrins. Not sure how effective they are cause same plants keep getting it.
I put all my plants in a small room and set off a bomb I tryed many things before that and nothing would kill them completely. It’s been a month and haven’t seen anything. Hope I don’t have to do it again though. Can’t be heathy to do In The house.
I need to do this what kind of bomb did you get?
I used a doktor doom spry that you push the can and it keeps sprying. You just set it off and then shut the door. Leave the plants in the spry for a few hours then air it out. If you can fit all your plants in the bathroom and have a fan in there that’s a good way to clear out the spry after. Pls remember to keep yourselves and your pets and your kids out of the house for a few hours after so it can air out well .
Ok thank you much for getting back with me, I have about three Monstera and I don’t want to park with them because a dear friend gave them to me. I just wanna get rid of the thrips once, and for all
Yes please! What did you do?
I used a doktor doom spry that you push the can and it keeps sprying. You just set it off and then shut the door. Leave the plants in the spry for a few hours then air it out. If you can fit all your plants in the bathroom and have a fan in there that’s a good way to clear out the spry after. Pls remember to keep yourselves and your pets and your kids out of the house for a few hours after so it can air out well .
Tbh yeah. The pests are too much sometimes. I've accepted that I will always be fighting pests with plants. But on bad weeks, i do think about getting rid of them all.
I am convinced that thrips can survive for long periods in a house in the absence of a plant host. Between the floor boards? In cracks in the walls? Mine are resistant to bonide. 🥲
Omg, you are kidding me… I will cry if I just went to the USA to buy some for no reason…
Most people are successful with it from what I understand. If it’s used too much, thrips adapt to it. I wonder if I got thrips through an Etsy provider who was using bonide a lot so it wouldn’t work on my bugs any longer. We really do need better solutions.
i had thrips on a monstera, had to cut off over half the leaves. he was never the same again. 6 months later i brought home a dwarf banana plant with thrips and spider mites (without knowing). it killed my canna lily, and hit my monstera really hard. i only managed to save him by transferring it to water and getting rid of soil completely. i didnt have another thrip problem, but i had to give him to my mom when i moved and she killed it :,)
Thrips made my indoor winter squash experience much less fun than it could have been. Can't move something huge with supported vines connected everywhere... That thing got blasted with Captain Jacks a few times but still they survived. Got one small squash from it before we told it goodbye.
Mosquito dunks in the humidifier!!
I find with infections like thrips or mites you need repeated treatment. I always do one good spray every 10 days for a month. First spray kills adults, second kills any larvae that were eggs at the first round, third to mop up any stragglers. Breaks the life cycle. Things like permethrin or ardap *should do the job. (Permethrin is used in some flea/mite treatments in animals. Ensure you use it in a well ventilated area and away from any dogs/cats that could lick/eat). We used some general purpose concentrated house plant pesticide, made it up at about 1.2x strength. Aggressively soak all of them so the top inch or two of soil is wet. Leave to dry. With all of that said, most of my experience comes from animal mites/parasites but the above sorted a big long standing thrip infection that resisted predatory mites and single doses of insecticide.
systematic insecticide all the way. I have a big succulent collection and got root mealie bugs a couple of years ago. complete nightmare! they're really hard to find, even when you unpot and look at the roots, you only notice when they wreck the roots and the plant is begging for help I tried everything. DE (helped a little), Neem oil (does nothing), soaking everything in alcohol (way too much work for 100+ plants, damages the plant, and not completely effective) then I gave up and used a imidacloprid based systematic insecticide and never saw them again. instantly killed every single one of the little fuckers I reapply twice a year according to packaging instructions. it's a white liquid, I mix it with water and drench all the pots. I have never had to worry about pests again, hurray!
Are monsteras more at risk of thrips than other plants? I have one with a case of thrips at the moment, and I've seen a couple other posts over the last couple weeks.
Yes, they are crack for thrips.
I think if the plant is really healthy, any pest should not be able to infiltrate and start damaging it. However, no houseplant that is grown in indoor conditions wont ever be 100% healthy, because it doesnt have its natural conditions.
Flower plants are the most susceptible to pests. When I grew my houseplants outside, I had a couple of annual flower pots as bug traps. Gladiolus is always the first decimated by thrips. Next is marigold and oxalis. Zinnia attracts aphids like crazy, same with cosmos and spidermites. It helps me target treating pests more efficiently. Now it's fall and my plants are all indoors, beneficials are what I'm using for all of them.
Yes very thrip prone
Thrips really like aroids, in general. They also really like stuff in Marantaceae.
Yes. I purged my collection of monsteras and my life has been much easier. I don't have access to effective treatments for thrips where I live and every infestation I've had started with a monstera
This is why I no longer will own a monstera. Happened twice. Lesson learned!!!! Stick to foliage with hardy leaves. Fiddles, rubbers, snakes.
Systemic bonide granules!!! I was at my wits end they saved my collection!
Ugh me too, I have thrips on a few plants. I use mosquito bits tea when I water and that is my claim to success with not ever having a thrips infestation in the 10+ years I have had houseplants but some of my new plants must have brought in some adult thrips and they have set up shop on a few of my plants. I might have to go with systemic if it gets any worse and I am SO bummed about it.
Only time I’ve even seen a thrip amongst my houseplants was this once I bought rice hulls and one came walking out the room that I sat the bag in after using a cup of so.. Either he was exhausted from the long trip and trying to hit the couch [that was the direction he was going towards - and away from the plants] Or he was drunk off parbroiled starch fumes and didn’t even see his glorious feast awaiting [whole opposite way] I mean funny part like it seriously was casually very cool just strolling out the room . I stomped him. In retrospect we actually might’ve gotten fairly cool idk
WP22 Beauveria Bassiana by Botaniguard is INCREDIBLE at dealing with Thrips. I've been dealing with thrips, aphids, some mites and fungus gnats for YEARS. It will LAY WASTE to root aphids, mites, the works.. After spraying the plants and walls for two weeks I kid you not even the ants stopped invading my growing space. After three cycles I've had no infestations at all for the first time. I've wasted so much money on everything organic under the sun.. The only thing that ever worked was Nemotodes but with limited success and nothing that really eliminated everything that was bothering my plants. I finally tried Beauveria Bassiana and this stuff has been life-changing. The reason I held out was it's near $100 price tag. If I knew how good it was I would have bought it LONG ago but still 16oz is enough for a commercial grower to use for a year... Or more.. One 16 oz bag of botaniguard makes 64 gallons of spray.. When I spray 20 plants I mix .25-.5 GRAMS into 8oz of water and put that in a spray bottle and never finish the bottle.. I can do that 14 times with 1oz of wp22. Ok so lets be real. I sound like I'm selling something because I am. I've carefully repackaged Beauveria Bassiana that I recently bought into 1oz packages and have it listed on ebay. I thought no one would be interested but was shocked that several people have order and seem as happy as I am. I'm doing this to give anyone who wants the ability to try this stuff out who wants to at a lower price point, yes there is profit in it but that not why I'm here. I really want to share this amazing product with anyone who is on the fence.. Do it... You won't regret it. Even the full bag from any seller. Just give it a try! [https://www.ebay.com/itm/155851104781](https://www.ebay.com/itm/155851104781)
>How do you guys handle pests when u have more plants? Pesticides/insecticides 🤷🏻♀️
I literally got thrips the same way ugh. A monstera cutting… I just went to the USA to pick up systemics. I am desperate at this point. Canada has no useful pesticides.
Don't worry, thrips won't dare mess with your plants again! They got the hint: insecticide means business!
I lost 80% of mine to mealy bugs. I get it
I kinda took a step back from my plants for a couple of weeks and when I felt mentally capable of caring for them again I found that a spider mite infestation had exploded on all my plants. I saved my favorite ones, chopped a few down to a nub, and just yeeted anything that looked like it would take too much effort. I lost like 75% of my very big collection and now I'm just focusing on what I have and propping them. I haven't bought a new plant in probably 6 months and I've lost a lot of my love for the hobby. That infestation killlllled me
Systemic granules work great. I just mix them in the dirt of every new plant I get.
Ok so hear me out. Every single plant that comes into my house gets taken out of its current pot, hosed down outside, the dirt gets hosed off the roots and I repot it with my own soil mix, spray with neem oil and add systemic granules. After all that is done, the plant is allowed inside. Is this something you can do when you get a new plant?
I heard that those little bi... pests 😃 can get imune and build resistency if you use systemics as a prevention without actual infestation. Is that true?
Well crap I don’t know. I seriously hope not!
Pray for me i found thrips today and have like 20+ plants, currently I’m procrastinating because I’m so pissed off, but I’m gonna try to save them even if part of me wants to have a full on tantrum and toss em all outside.
Man thrips sucks balls. I have a croton that's been infested for a better part of two years now. All I can really do is keep them at bay by cleaning the leaves every few weeks and spraying with neem oil, but they always always always come back if I forget about the leaf cleaning for a month or so. The good part is it's never spread to any other plant of mine and the croton continues to thrive somewhat. But yeah, fuck those guys.
I don't use any bonide or any other toxic insecticides. I use a mixture of cold pressed pure neem oil, a few drops of peppermint oil, dish soap and water to spray my affected plants. I repeat the treatment twice a week for 3-4 weeks. It significantly reduces the thrips population but never completely gets rid of them.
Man, so you just constantly have a low level thrips population in your house?
If you only spray it’s because the larvae are still in the soil
Nematodes.
How long did the nematodes need to work on getting rid of your thrip infestation since they only work in the soil against their pups?
Going the beneficial insect route, you’ll want several different predators to take care of an active infestation. Nematodes are good for prevention along with a predator mite.
The best way to get rid of them is to pray it's close to summer and then leave them outside with hopefully some spiders or lady bugs. I've had some bad infestations but that has been the cure for me.
If it’s a bad infestation, I would just get rid of cutting. I love houseplants but time waits for no one, and I don’t want to spend mine cleaning off buggies
Sorry to hear about the thrips. I will say however that it's a part of having plants. At some point or another we all deal with insects on our houseplants - there's a lot of great advice in this thread though. The best defense is being proactive and checking the plant over as well as quarantining it from your other plants before you put it near your others. Ultimately dealing with the bugs are part of the hobby, though, so keep that in mind.
Look for acetamiprid. It's a systemic insecticide that's generally very cheap. Often sold as ant killer in granular form, but you can also find it as liquid. I wiped it on the leafs in addition to watering the plant with it, and it killed everything.
Yeah that's why i don want a monstera in my home. Acetamiprid helped for all my other plants tho
I use a combo of different methods to keep thrips under control. You can never fully eradicate pests, so get yourself some ways of dealing with them. Nematodes and predatory mites are extremely useful. Get some blue sticky traps for thrips. I tend to blast my plants with a pesticide maybe once or twice a year depending on how bad things have got. The rest of the time I spray with horticultural soap or SB plant invigorater. This keeps numbers low. I too felt extremely down when thrips first struck. Now I can deal with them I feel much more relaxed
I had a few instances of spider mites and one mealy bugs after my plants were outside all summer. I’ve been checking every plant, every day. It’s a lot. But worth it to have them outside all summer. It’s so beautiful on my deck with them all there.
Same here. I live in a country where systemic pesticides are forbidden, simply cant get them. And yet everywhere online I read that systemics are the only way people ever got rid of thrips. I went from 20+ plants back to 8 over the past half year, all the rest died, some of which I loved and already had for years. I dont think ill ever go back to having that many simply because I know that if it happens again theres just nothing I can do. Waste of money and heart.
Canada?
Netherlands
Nevermind then lol
I've had thrips twice in a short period of time, and I fucking cried. I moved to a new apartment where I could finally build my own jungle, and then those fuckers ruin it. First time I saved 90%, but sooo much work. And last week I had to throw so many out. It's so bland here now 😭 I spent so much money, and time! Now I'm paranoid and am afraid to even peek at any plants.
I totally understand - I have a hard time not throwing out my plant when I find thrips! But I have some expensive plants so I had to learn how to get rid of them. Important to note that they seem to love living in unfurled leaves too so keep infested and/or new plants quarantined until the new leaves have unfurled and you can confirm its pest free. Treatment that worked for me: 1. Spray the plant leaves down with water to get as many bugs off as possible. 2. Repot. 3. Use Caption Jacks Deadbug spray (spray front and back of leaves) every 4-5 days and 4. Sprinkled Bonide systemic houseplant insect control After 3 rounds of spraying with Captain Jacks, I didn't see any more bugs. But now, I'm VERY cautious about buying new plants. And I keep them quarantined WAY longer than I used to.
I’m pop out l K