How to get rid of gnats in indoor plants once and for all!

What a joy it is to have your own green corner in your apartment or private home. The variety of indoor plants is so vast that sometimes it seems there are more than garden or vegetable plants, or even all of them combined. Among them, there are both easy-to-grow and fussy ones. In any case, they bring a wealth of positive emotions.

Besides being a joy, a home greenhouse can also bring challenges, especially when plants become diseased or infested by insects. One particularly annoying problem is gnats in houseplants, which can be very difficult to get rid of. To solve the problem quickly, you need to understand the cause of these uninvited guests.

Reasons for occurrence

Midges generally require a moist environment, so they thrive in areas with excess water, overwatering, and stagnant water, as these are the best conditions for larval development. There are also secondary factors:

1. Infestation from a neighboring plant, perhaps a new one recently purchased. A gardener's best practice is to carefully inspect the new arrival and, if necessary, quarantine it for a period of time.

   

   

   

2. Repotting into a pot that's too large, where condensation forms on the walls and moisture accumulates, even when watering is done properly and not excessively. But this can be enough for gnats.
3. The soil was initially contaminated and already contained pest eggs. Therefore, recommendations often include the requirement to calcine the potting mix before use.
4. Somewhere near the flowers, there's spoiled produce (like a stray apple core) or a grocery item that's been infested with gnats. They'll soon scout the area and find vulnerable plants.

   

   

   

Depending on the season, pests are most common in winter. This is when apartments tend to have less-than-ideal climates due to heating, which disrupts the proper humidity balance. These unfavorable conditions weaken the plant, making it easier for gnats to colonize it.

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Varieties

Among the pests that can be generally called midges, the following varieties are distinguished:

1. Drosophila, also known as fruit flies, resembles a miniature fly. It feeds on plant sap, microorganisms, and rotting debris. It prefers cyperus, calla lilies, violets, and orchids, but if these are unavailable, it will not disdain any other flower.

   

2. Sciarids are fungus gnats that actually resemble black mosquitoes in appearance. They prey on the root system of plants. While living there, they also compact the soil, depriving the roots of oxygen. Given a choice, they'll settle in pots containing ficus, violets, azaleas, aloe, and Christmas cactus.

   

3. Whiteflies look like tiny, white moths. They are dangerous at all stages of their development. They suck sap from leaves, secreting a liquid similar to aphids. This liquid provides a rich source of nutrition for fungi, which then continue to destroy the plant. Orchids, fuchsias, roses, impatiens, passionflowers, and pelargoniums are just a few of their favorite victims.

   

4. Springtails, or podura, can be seen on the surface of wet soil, at the base of a plant, or in a watered tray. They are very small (1-2 mm), fast, and jumpy. They feed on microorganisms and decaying organic matter, meaning they act more as insect indicators of overwatering.

   

   But when their numbers increase, they move on to young white root shoots or underground stems of plants, exposing them to fungal and bacterial infections. They can infest any plant, but prefer violets, begonias, fuchsias, and orchids.

All the preferences of midges are rather arbitrary; they will settle where there is moisture and rotting organic matter.

How to fight and "win"

Now that we know the enemy, we need to learn how to combat it. There are many methods, including mechanical removal, treatment with home remedies, or commercial chemicals.

On the leaves

When starting to eradicate pests from leaves, remove as many adult insects as possible. You can first use a vacuum cleaner for this. Then, set traps to continue collecting them.

Trap options:

• a saucer with sweet liquid or jam placed near the affected flower;
• duct tape hung around;
• Homemade sticky traps: paper painted yellow and coated with honey. For added effectiveness, you can attach a toothpick to it and stick it into the soil like a flag, so you can use both sides of the paper.

Once the visible pests have been collected, the flower needs to be given a shower, washing the leaves as much as possible of the larvae and eggs stuck to the underside of the leaves.

The next step is treatment with poison. For this, depending on the size of the infestation and your personal views on the safety of the products for your home and its inhabitants, you should choose a store-bought insecticide or prepare your own.

Folk remedies:

• Garlic infusion: Pour 600 ml of boiling water into a container with a crushed head of garlic and let steep for 2-4 hours. Spray the plant with the cooled liquid and water the soil;
• Antiparasitic agents for animals, such as Drontal or Pirantel, crush and dissolve in water, spray and water. Repeat after 7-10 days;

  

• Infusion of walnut partitions and cloves: pour 500 ml of boiling water over a teaspoon of each ingredient, let steep for 24 hours, and then apply to the entire flowerpot. Repeat twice;
• Tobacco: Steam 50 g of dried tobacco in a liter of boiling water and leave for 2 days. Spray in 2 doses, 5 days apart;
• Celandine: 100 g of celandine herb (dried, available at a pharmacy) is poured with 1 liter of boiled water and infused for 24 hours. The leaves are treated three times, every 10 days;
• Soap solution: 1 liter of water, 20 g of laundry soap. Dissolve and process.

  

Ready-made products include aerosol Dichlorvos, Raptor, Raid, or liquid Actellic, Fufanon, Mospilan, Confidor.

You need to be extremely careful with them. The procedure should not be performed in a living space. To be on the safe side, you can create a "toxic greenhouse." To do this, after treatment, place an undamaged bag over the plant and tie it around the pot to keep the toxic air inside for an extended period of time—4-5 hours.

All these steps should be repeated in a week or two, in case not all the eggs have died. In that case, the population will soon increase again, and all the work will have been wasted.

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In the ground

For pests that live in the soil of houseplants, the control methods are slightly different. At the initial stage, you should also try to collect as many adult flies as possible to minimize reproduction. Place sticky traps around the flowerpot and create strips on the soil.

Then, the soil is cultivated. First, stop watering the plant to allow the substrate to dry out, making life worse for the gnats. The soil also needs to be loosened.

The following folk remedies are used to destroy pests:

1. Potassium permanganate solution: Make it very light, barely visible to the naked eye, to avoid burning the roots. Apply once a week for a month.
2. Garlic: the recipe is the same as in the previous section, but for greater impact, garlic cloves, peeled and damaged, so that they release their phytoncides more intensively, should also be stuck around the flower.
3. Sulfur attack: immerse matches with their heads in the soil and keep them there for a week, watering and changing the matches every other day.

   

4. Wood ash has a double effect, as it also acts as a fertilizer (though only if the plant doesn't require acidic soil, as ash alkalizes it). To combat pests, sprinkle it on the soil surface. The gnats will soon disappear.

   

5. Tobacco: you can make an infusion, or simply sprinkle dry powder on the surface of the soil.
6. Cinnamon: its ability to stop putrefaction is used here. The gnats will simply have nothing to feed on. The aroma in the room will be a pleasant bonus.
7. Zvezdochka Balsam: midges dislike strong odors, including those of peppermint and eucalyptus essential oils. Apply the balsam to the edges of the pot.
8. A recipe using animal parasite tablets will also be effective against soil insects. It's described above.

Another effective option is to replace the soil. This requires thoroughly washing the plant after removing it from the pot, as well as the pot itself. Wash the flower carefully to avoid damaging the roots. You can rinse it in one of the infusions, recipes for which are included in the article. Use new soil and bake it in the oven at 100 degrees Celsius for one hour. Then add a microflora restorer, such as vermicompost or vermiculite.

Pouring toxic substances onto the soil is also more effective using a "toxic greenhouse." If you're sure the gnats aren't hiding in the leaves, you can cover only the pot with plastic, leaving the above-ground portion of the plant uncovered.

Pre-made medications should be chosen carefully, weighing the risks to others. Low-toxicity options are available, such as Actofit, Fitoverm, Agravertin, Fufanon, and Inta-vir. These are applied twice, one week apart.

There are also a number of granular products that should be mixed into the top layer of potting soil and watered in. They act a little slower, but are still effective. Examples include Mukhoed, Bazudin, and Grom-2.

When handling any preparations, wear protective equipment: gloves and a mask. Afterward, the work area can be wet-cleaned.

Preventive measures

The main preventative measure is to control watering. Even if the plant is a water-drinker, it's unlikely to benefit from stagnant water, which can cause fermentation.

Other conditions to prevent midges from appearing:

1. Keep the soil clean and remove all fallen leaves and stems. Some people recommend mulching the soil around the plant. However, for indoor plants, this is unnecessary. Mulch is used outdoors to protect plants from sunlight, frost, and soil drying out. Indoors, these climatic influences are not present.

   

2. Apply fertilizers in the form of infusions and preparations, not organic matter. Sometimes it's recommended to add used tea leaves or coffee grounds, but this shouldn't be done.
3. Carry out disinfection procedures immediately before planting a new plant for the first time: treat the soil with steam, in the oven or keep it in the cold, or pour boiling water over the pot.
4. Monitor the soil to ensure the top layer always has time to dry out. Loosen the soil.
5. Good drainage. When planting, ensure this ensures the plant receives sufficient water, and any excess drains into the tray, preventing stagnation.

Frequently asked questions you may have

Experts answer additional questions about midges:

Sometimes a midge infestation seems impossible to overcome, especially if you've unknowingly allowed all your flowers to become infested. But even this "natural disaster" can be dealt with by following the advice of experienced gardeners.