Very informative and helped me a lot. Thank you. Any advice you have for me would be wonderful! I did the proxide watering but soil is wet because most of my plants like wet soil. So I took all of the house plants outside and put them in the sunshine. I stired up the top layer of soil and put lite layer of cinnamon on them. Getting potatoes and vinegar today and will do that step.
I keep you posted on how things are going? Dawn hope your feeling better I too have a clinical illness. Thanks for all the great work you did and for sharing this with me and everyone.
Joyce S. Gnatrol was my last hope…but it is a sterilized medium, so it was not a long term solution. Actually was worthless, the gnats loved it. My plants started wilting from overwatering with gnatrol. Mixed in about 8 heaping teaspoons into the top 2 inches of my 2 5 gallon pots. Had given up all hope really, gnats totally out of control…. Many thanks. Problem solved. Two years ago I had a compost gnat problem in my house, easily solved as the plants were destined to go outside.
This year I again have the gnats indoors — but the plants are to stay inside. To prevent the gnats, I started watering from the bottom; got the gnats anyway.
Put yellow, vaseline-covered strips on top of the soil — caught no gnats. Covered the tops of the plant containers with plastic cling material — and I still have gnats, although marginally fewer.
These are not fruit flies. They are definitely compost gnats. Hi Dawn I tried the Hydrogen Peroxide, The BT,letting the soil dry out,sticky traps and non of these worked still infested with those dreadful fungus knats. I am about at my wits end any suggestions? Oh dear! It might be that you have a vector in your house that is reinfesting the plants, such as a drain pipe or another infested plant.
If the plant is really valuable to you, you might need to just keep their numbers small and manageable by consistently using sticky traps and monthly hydrogen peroxide or nematode soaks. Sometimes it takes several life cycles to get them under control.
You can try it, but I think you will find it is not foolproof, and the gnats will enter from the bottom. Can I use hydrogen peroxide on my pots with veggie seedlings more than once a week? If I water the plants twice a week, can I use HP twice. As long as you are not using all at once. Bear in mind the peroxide will also kill the BT-i live bacteria. Hydrogen peroxide only kills them at the larval stage of their life cycle. You will need to use methods that catch them at all stages.
Thank you so much for the wonderful post! Just wondering after I apply DE for a couple weeks, do I have to remove it? Or just leave it on top of the soil? And also is pouring HP bad for my tomato plants? Will I still be able to eat the tomatoes after the HP treatment?
I plan to use both DE and HP. Neither are harmful to leave on your plants. HP works best in indoor pots though, not out in the garden. Enjoy your tomatoes! To stay stay within the metaphor…my cup runneth over!!! Thank you so much! Great article! Very informative. I researched the properties of ceylon cinnamon vs. Rather, cassia contains much, much more cinnamaldehyde, the anti-fungal chemical- saigon, being the most potent.
But, Ceylon is the best for dietary purposes, because it contains very low amounts of coumarin, a blood thinner… Happy gardening! I wonder if I placed the bag of potting mix outside in our freezing temperatures it would kill the larvae?
I tried your potato method without attracting any larvae.. I am using coco coir as a growing media. Could it take longer than 4 hours? Do I need a bug scope to see the larvae? I would definitely leave the potatoes for a few days, not a few hours. Also you will want to use more than one control because potatoes only work at one stage of their life cycle. Hello Dawn, Quick question that may see silly, but what is the best way to get rid of the larvae on the potato slices if they are there when I check in a few hours?
New to gardening this past Spring — and very green in my attempts and experience. Thank your for this information as I have tried several things to no avail and have begun implementing a few additional ones this week in an attempt to get rid of all fungus gnats. Driving me crazy! In your outside trashcan should be sufficient. Hi everyone!
I tried removing fruit flies by making fruit fly traps and pouring vinegar and baking soda down the drains a couple of times, but they keep coming back. Thanks so much for the advice. Still got to learn advice is usually given from the advisors having first-hand experience?
Unless you did a lot of amending to the soil? Soil needs to be porous. There need to many micro pockets, where air can get to the root. When you water or it rains, the water is able to move easily through porous soil, bring with it trapped air bubbles. Compacted soil holds water, but not any air without air the plants roots start to rot. If the park was a grass covered, the soil will be even more compacted and contain very little nutritional value.
Peat, Coconut Coir, Bark mulch, pumice, other lava rocks, etc… each make the soil more porous along with other qualities. You will also need to add some compost to give the soil some nutritional value. The compost makes the soil heavy, so more porous material will need to be added.
In the end you spent more making the park soil usable. When you could have bought a bag of organic container soil or seed starting soil. I write organic, because the park soil has unknown levels of pesticides. Hi, Thanks for the wonderful information. I tried one of your expirrment and really benefitted.
Whatever you write and think is extremely scientific thus helpful. I am really lucky to find your website. Thanks I am from India extreme climate Please reply one important question. I have a serious problem of fungus gnants in my orchids!! I just finished watering all of them 22 with the diluted peroxide. I have gotten rid of a lot of adults but with sticky tape but when I watered today I saw a lot of little ones must have just hatched swimming around in the water.
How do I get rid of them? Also how often should I water with the peroxide mix? I really need to get rid of them fast. Thanks for any help you can give me. I am having a problem with fungus gnat in some terrariums I have made. Terrariums are naturally moist and humid, so this is like heaven for the Gnats. So, I am currently drenching the soil with Eco-Neem, hopefully I have some success, although I am not sure for how long I am suppose to do this or if I need to repeat the application.
If, so I milght build it in to a layer of my terrariums. Any ideas? You could try a test batch and let us know! Thank you for this information about fungus gnats. I was wondering what had gotten to some of my plants and why these little gnats were harder to get rid of than fruit flies. I feel certain your suggestions will help solve this problem. Also, do you think these little invaders have come with bananas?
Awhile ago, I noticed a fruit fly problem after leaving bananas on my counter top instead of my usual practice of freezing them immediately. I began treating the outbreak in my house with the hydrogen peroxide and the yellow sticky fly paper. I also tried the potatoes. One word of caution with this method: The adult flies were using the moist potatoes to lay their eggs on.
The outbreak re-surged. Today, I applied DE food grade to all of my existing indoor plants. I had already applied it to my seedling pots. I have begun sharing your website with my other gardening friends. Hi, thank you for all of these ideas.
Letting a finger-length of top soil dry out before you water again will help prevent or slow an infestation. If you already have fungus gnats at home, you'll need to take a multi-step approach to get rid of them. It'll involve targeting the flying adults and the larvae under the soil. It's best to keep it isolated from other plants, especially pot plants, that you might have outside. Sticky traps or sticky plants will trap and kill flying adults. One adult can lay up to around eggs, so this can slow population growth.
Or if a plant takes your fancy, sundews Drosera sp. Neem oil is an organic insecticide made from the seeds of neem trees and you can pick up a bottle pretty much anywhere that sells plants. It's sold as a concentrate which needs to be diluted in a spray bottle or in a pre-diluted spray bottle ready to go. Soak the top cm of the soil with your neem oil spray about once a week for at least two months or for one month after you stop seeing the flying adults.
Outside of your neem oil soak, remember to let the soil dry out between watering. Three commercially available biological control agents can be purchased to control fungus gnats in pots or container media Table 1. These include Steinernema nematodes, Hypoaspis predatory mites, and the biological insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis Bti.
Several Bti products Mosquito Bits, Gnatrol are readily available in retail nurseries and garden centers, so these products may be the most convenient for home gardeners to use. Bti does not reproduce or persist indoors, so infestations in potting media might require repeated applications at about five-day intervals to provide control. Nematodes and Hypoaspis mites must be mail-ordered and are live and perishable products, requiring immediate application. Nematodes can provide relatively long-term control of fungus gnat larvae, and they can be self-reproducing after several inoculative applications to establish their populations.
Steinernema feltiae is more effective against fungus gnats than other commercially available nematode species. Mix Bti or nematodes with water, and apply as a soil drench, or spray onto media using a hand-pump spray bottle or other spray equipment, following label directions. Several natural enemies help to manage fungus gnat populations in outdoor systems, such as landscapes and gardens, and indoors in greenhouses and conservatories, including the predatory hunter flies, Coenosia spp.
These flies catch and consume adult fungus gnats in mid-air, and prey on fungus gnat larvae in soil while developing as larvae themselves. Conserve these and other natural enemies by avoiding broad-spectrum insecticide applications. Insecticides are rarely warranted to control these flies in and around homes. However, if you do apply an insecticide for fungus gnats, consider using Bti or Steinernema feltiae nematodes to control the larvae; see the section Biological Control for more information.
Spray the surface of potting soil and plant parts where adults typically rest. Do not aerially fog indoors or attempt to spray adult gnats in flight. Be sure the product is labeled for your particular use e. Pyrethrins have low toxicity to people and pets and are the active ingredients in the botanical pyrethrum, which is derived from flowers of certain chrysanthemums. Many products include a petroleum-derived synergist piperonyl butoxide, or PBO to increase pyrethrum effectiveness.
Pyrethroids e. When using these products on houseplants or interiorscape containers, if possible move plants outdoors for treatment as a precaution, and wait about a day after applying the chemical before bringing them back inside. Dreistadt, S. Oakland: Univ. Cloyd, R. Fungus gnat management in greenhouses and nurseries PDF.
Publication MF Fungus Gnats and March Flies. Clark, and M. Integrated Pest Management for Floriculture and Nurseries. I have done toxic soaks and let poison pellets bloom in water overnight. I have top-dressed. I have bottom-watered.
And bottom-watering is when you let your plant soak up water through its drainage hole instead of pouring it over the top, which keeps that soil at the top from getting damp and attracting critters. I have gone as long as possible without watering my plants before I start to feel dehydrated on their behalf. I have repotted. I have purchased strange devices, like the Katchy, a robotic insect vacuum that lures its victims with UV light and sucks them to their doom with a fan.
Some wilted and died as the gnat larvae chewed up their roots. At The Times, we have an internal Slack channel for plant lovers where I have posted about my plight. More than 10 times what the original calathea cost me.
All of these items promised to ward off, murder, smother or otherwise expunge my pest problem. Only a handful succeeded. Even worse? They got into my big dracaena, my fiddle-leaf fig, my bird of paradise. They unleashed their foul spawn on my pride and joy: my two big monstera plants. At this point, I am legitimately concerned that I have somehow bred a mutant strain that is immune to every treatment out there.
Is your plant thirsty? How do you know when you should you water your houseplants? Let the soil guide you. They look like fruit flies but lay their eggs on damp soil, not past-ripe produce. They are slow, clumsy fliers — rather satisfyingly easy to swat. Their larvae are the root eaters. This heat is stressing out your plants: 12 tips to keep them alive. Southern California is facing triple-digit temps well into next week.
Here are tips for keeping your plants alive when the weather is blistering. Eradicate your fungus gnat infestation for good with the following method: Put up a bunch of sticky traps, top-dress the soil with sand and do nematode soaks every 10 to 14 days until the problem is resolved.
Also, stop overwatering your plants and eliminate any unnecessary sources of moisture. The thing about fungus gnats is that you have to stop them at every stage of the life cycle to eradicate them. If you kill only the adults flying around by trapping them, some will get the chance to lay another round of eggs in the soil, and the cycle begins anew. But they capture only adult fungus gnats and not necessarily before the bugs have had a chance to lay eggs.
If you catch the problem early, a strong line of sticky trap defenses might be enough to stop it in its tracks, but I was too far gone for this to be sufficient. I initially tried steel wool after seeing a post about it on Reddit. That was not successful; they still had plenty of room to fly around.
I tried again with a robust bag of landscaping sand from a big-box hardware store. The sand gives enough coverage to prevent the adults from laying more eggs and traps the larvae in the soil, stopping them from wriggling to freedom.
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