Indoor flowers are an important subject of decoration for many apartments and houses. Due to the huge variety of shapes and colors, decorative plants can be harmoniously combined with the design of home interiors, furniture, curtains and even wallpapers.
Moreover, indoor flowers are an additional source of pleasant experiences for their host. They delight the eye, inspire positive emotions, and help distract oneself from a hard day's work.
Caring for indoor flowers is often easy and pleasant. However, sometimes domestic plants can get sick and wither, depressing their masters with their appearance. Why can this happen?
The first thing that comes to mind with experienced flowers is that midges are wound up in the flowers. How to get rid of these uninvited guests and return to pets their lovely, pristine appearance? This article will be devoted to this article.
Reason for occurrence
Cats in flowers. What to do? Before analyzing in detail all kinds of ways and tips, let's first figure out why this problem occurs.
There are several reasons why midges appear on the plant. You need to know them in order to take care of the flowers, observing all the precautions.
The first reason is that the soil was infected from the beginning by midge larvae. Of course, the past cannot be changed, but the next time you need to remember that before planting the plants in the ground, it must be disinfected. In addition, regular preventive tillage from pests will prevent the occurrence of parasitic colonies.
The next reason why midges are wound up in indoor flowers can be excessive waterlogging of the soil. This can occur due to frequent and heavy watering. If the weather is dry and hot, there is a temptation to moisten the flowers more than they need. Because of this, the water in the pot may stagnate and contribute to the appearance of unwanted insects.
Also, midges in home flowers can appear due to a constantly open window through which they can fly in and settle in wet soil, or because of crumbling leaves that begin to rot in the pot itself, thereby creating a favorable area for the appearance of harmful insects.
As you can see, if you follow all the rules for growing indoor plants and regularly disinfect the soil, then you will never face the question: how to remove midges from flowers in a pot?
What are the pests?
Before thinking about how to remove midges from flowers, let's briefly get acquainted with the insects themselves.
The most frequent guests of indoor plants are ponds - small white midges, no larger than one millimeter in size. They can be seen on the surface of freshly watered soil or at the foot of a flower pot. Ponds, which appear mainly in the cool season, actively fly from leaf to leaf, and their larvae located in the ground have a negative effect on the root system of the whole plant.
Scyarids are small black insects, similar to mosquitoes, flying abundantly not only around the flower itself, but throughout the living quarters. The larvae of these pests are translucent worms up to half a centimeter long. They make the soil dense, inaccessible to life-giving oxygen, and also affect the root of the plant itself. Sciarides can appear as a result of the use of homemade organic fertilizers (tea leaves, humus and so on).
Drosophila - red small midges very similar to flies can also cause irreparable harm to your green pet.
What plants are most susceptible to pests?
The most "delicious" flowers
It also depends on the type of pests. For example, ponds are very fond of fuchsias and begonias, since their leaves are soft and gentle to the touch. Scyarides prefer plants with denser leaves - violets, ficuses, azaleas.
Chemical methods
So how to get midges out of flowers in a pot? First, let's briefly discuss pest control chemicals, and then we’ll talk about more harmless drugs made with improvised ingredients.
The main chemical remedy for midges in flowers is ordinary dichlorvos. It can be "Raptor", "Raid" or others.
You can also use special solutions, such as Grom-2, Agravertin, Bazudin, Mukhoed, Karbofos, Aktara, and so on.
When using these drugs, one should not forget about personal safety - use rubber gloves, safety glasses, a respirator. Also, before use, you should read the instructions in order to carefully follow the recommendations and tips contained in it.
But how to remove midges from flowers in a pot with folk remedies? About this - below.
Recommended Components
What needs to be taken in order to prepare a potent remedy for harmful insects? First of all, you will need:
- garlic;
- potassium permanganate;
- soap;
- wood ash;
- tobacco;
- dill;
- matches;
- and even oranges.
All these ingredients are part of effective recipes for how to remove midges from flowers in a pot. How to use them?
The first way. Garlic
According to reviews, the most effective remedy is an infusion of garlic. How to cook it? To do this, take three or four medium cloves, brush them, cut in half and put on top of the soil, you can even deepen a little. It is sometimes recommended to prepare a saturated garlic solution. To do this, take a few heads of garlic (two or three), peel, cut into small slices and pour a liter of boiling water. After a few hours, the solution is ready. It should be filtered, poured into a spray bottle and irrigated all the affected plant, as well as pouring the prepared compound on the ground.
Cats in flowers. Folk remedies and recipes
As the next means of controlling midges, you can use a weak solution of potassium permanganate, which is recommended to water the soil as it dries.
An interesting recipe for getting rid of midges in home flowers is to use orange peels. They need to be cut into wide strips, dried and stuck in the ground.
What else can be used to combat unwanted insects? According to expert gardeners, pests are afraid of laundry soap. To do this, twenty grams of detergent should be finely chopped or grated, pour a liter of warm water and dissolve. With the resulting composition, spray both the flowers themselves and the soil in which they grow.
Ash is also considered an effective method for annoying midges and their larvae. Just sprinkle it on the ground in a flowerpot, slightly fluff up the top layer and wait. Pests will disappear in a few days.
What else can help? Tobacco. Pour twenty grams of smoky potion with a half-liter can of water, let it brew for a couple of days, and then add another liter of water. The resulting solution is recommended to spray the ground part of the plant.
Dill is also an effective method against flying insects. It should be spread over the ground and left for two days. Then change to a new one. This must be done until the midges disappear.
Matches. What is the essence of this method? Uninvited guests are very afraid of sulfur. Therefore, the matches should be deepened into the soil, head down, watered and left for two to three days, then pull out and stick new ones. According to numerous reviews, midges and their larvae should die in seven days.
The benefits of folk remedies
As you can see, there are many effective and current folk recipes that can help in the fight against unwanted insects. They are affordable, easy to prepare, convenient to use, and most importantly, practically safe for people and animals. Which of the methods you apply is up to you, based on your own experience, views and preferences.
We spent enough time on what should be done to get rid of midges in flower pots. Let's talk briefly about how to avoid this difficulty.
Proper fit
Since it is easier to prevent a problem than to fix it, below we will analyze the main tips and recommendations for the correct and error-free care of your green pets.
First of all, remember that before you start caring for a flower purchased in a store, it should be transplanted into a new soil, treated and disinfected with special means. To do this, you can use fertilizers purchased or prepared with your own hands, or you can calcine the earth in the oven at one hundred degrees.
Before planting any plant (even seeds), they should be thoroughly treated with a soapy solution.
Proper care
It is recommended to loosen the earth in flowerpots regularly so that it breathes.
Be careful with watering. As mentioned above, flowers do not like excessive moisture. To prevent water from accumulating in the pot, drainage should be installed. If you water the plant from below, it will take only the amount of moisture that it needs.
For high-quality cultivation of beautiful and healthy flowers, the room in which they are located should be regularly ventilated.
An important factor is the prevention of midges in the form of a weak solution of manganese. They can water the plant once every two weeks.
And the most important thing. Different flowers grow on the windowsills and in the living corners, differing from each other not only in color and shape, but also in the way they are grown and nourished. So, care for them will also be different. Therefore, before planting a particular type of flowering plant, information about it should be studied in detail: how often to water, how to fertilize, whether to prune, and so on.
To summarize
As you can see, midges are a very unpleasant, pathogenic phenomenon both for the roots of the plant and for the flower itself. Therefore, it is necessary to fight them purposefully and seriously. How? We talked about this in this article.
There are several ways to get rid of uninvited guests and their larvae. You can use pesticides, but you can use inexpensive and low-risk folk remedies for humans. According to the reviews of experienced gardeners, they are as effective and effective as purchased drugs.
In addition, we discussed how to prevent the appearance of midges, and which prophylactic agents are best used for this.
As you can see, there are many ways to deal with midges and other pests. Which one you choose is up to you!