Insects and Houseplants

My husband figured out after the first year overwintering our citrus trees (3) in the living room that we would need to drape flypaper over the branches to combat the army of fungus gnats that erupt from the soil right around Christmas time. (It's never pretty, and the first year, when it was a total shock, it was the worst.) This past year, that happened again and we had two new things:
1: We heard rustling every once in a while in the dead leaves at the bottom of one of the trees. That rustling was from a snail living in the leaf litter of the pot for the winter. That was weird to me, but he never tried to leave, just hung out and sometimes made noise.
2: Also this year, we had an inexplicable ant infestation in half the house, and no matter what I did the problem would not abate. Turns out that the roots of our Lakeland Limequat were the ideal home to a nest of miniscule and very active ants...ugh. Once it got warm enough three weeks ago to put the trees outside, the ant problem was drastically reduced. But November will come again, and I will have to bring all those trees inside once again...tips for leaving creatures outside when bringing trees inside appreciated!

I actually don't mind the bugs that come in on the houseplants. We have a large population of wood lice in our ficus that we keep topped up with leaves from a bin outside. They produce so much frass we dig it out periodically and use it to fertilize other plants.

We had a plant with an ants' nest in it for a few years. When it was small and just a few ants here and there occaisionally I didn't mind. It had a habit of growing, though, and then I'd put poison down, which kinda helped for a bit. Then our pitcher plant got long enough that it draped down into the ant plant. That thing almost completely wiped out the ants' nest. I actually moved the plant so they could recover, cause I ended up kinda liking the ants. So maybe you just need a pitcher plant.

We have fungus gnats, too. I haven't learned how to like them yet, but they don't bother me too much. For them, maybe you just need more spiders 😁.  I've seen jumping spiders catching in our house.

Keeping leaf litter clear when you bring the plants inside would probably help keep some things outside.

Jan White wrote:Keeping leaf litter clear when you bring the plants inside would probably help keep some things outside.

This was going to be my suggestion, too.

I wonder if giving the plants a nice shower before bringing them inside would help get rid of something not desired in the house?

I live in a really dry area and my hanging baskets were under cedar trees so that might be why I never have had a problem with insects coming inside.

Have you tried removing the root ball out of the planter before bringing the plant indoors? If there are ants, slugs or earthworms living in the pot you'd be able to get them out.

May Lotito wrote:Have you tried removing the root ball out of the planter before bringing the plant indoors? If there are ants, slugs or earthworms living in the pot you'd be able to get them out.

I will do this in November! Thank you!

Hey, how did this work out??

I appreciate my fungus gnats because they pollinate my spider plants and I’m working on a genetic diversity project.
But a few of my pots are inundated and might need some help.

Clay, what have you tried?

Soap spray?

What about putting the affected plants in a bag with some cotton balls soaked in alcohol then sealing the bag for a day or so?

I tried soap spray for a different issue on a different plant and either I left it too long/the sun hit it, or the soap wasn’t quite right. The plant ended up burning, but was saved.

The only thing I’ve not-so-seriously tried was the Katchy I found at thrift for a few dollars. It did work well enough last year, I just plugged it back in.

I think the alcohol trick might work for me! I’d rather not have to repot, in this specific case.

Still, I am curious to know if repotting was successful, in a last ditch scenario.  


All that to say though, I have no intention of waging all out war on the gnats. I’m hoping our relationship develops back into the “Tolerating Low Levels of Pests/Working with Beneficial Insects” space.


And I don’t wanna hurt my fungi friends, springtails, etc. either