Stealing the glow from your indoor plants, the spider mite is indeed the number one enemy for houseplant enthusiasts. It takes away the beauty of your garden or living room while killing your indoor plants, one puncture on the leaves after the other. A houseplant that once had a lush, glossy green color slowly starts wilting away and finally dies.
The aesthetic beauty that was once brought by your houseplants quickly fades. One irritating thing about spider mites is that they will move from one plant to another, harming all the plants they land on.
Fortunately, in this guide you will learn how to prevent and get rid of spider mites. For starters, let’s have a look at some of the reasons why you have a spider mites infestation in your houseplants.
The plant was infested at the source even before you bought it
Before you even got the indoor plant from your local home improvement store, the plant had already been infested by spider mites. And so when you brought it home, the situation could only worsen; the spider mites increased in number, eating your entire houseplant and here you are with a dead plant and frustrated about it.
To avoid such a sad scenario, you need to thoroughly inspect your indoor plants before buying them from the store.
Dirt on your plant
Spider mites mostly attack dirty and neglected plants. If you regularly clean your plants, you are highly likely to notice them before they increase in number and get a method to kill them.
Poor hydration
Spider mites tend to attack poorly hydrated plants and so raising the humidity of the air around your plant could help prevent an infestation. This can be done by misting or directly spraying your plants with water.
Contact with other infected plants
Once an indoor plant gets into contact with other plants infested by spider mites, it is highly likely to be affected. And so, if nothing is done to eradicate the problem, it will be a short time before you start seeing it sickening and deteriorating progressively.
Now, let’s look at how you can prevent and eliminate a spider mites infestation.
Use of Neem oil
What Neem oil does is that it creates a hostile environment for the spider mites and so they have nothing but to depart. It is not a one-time solution, though. You will have to regularly apply it on your plants’ leaves, mainly the underside where spider mites are highly likely to hide.
Water your plants regularly
Using a water hose, spray your spider mites-infested plants. This way, you can wash down the mites from the leaf surfaces. The spraying should be done regularly and thoroughly on all the leaf surfaces as this has been seen to be an effective way to get rid of mites. High-pressure water has also been found to kill these small insects.
Dust off your plants and clean them with alcohol
You need to regularly dust your plants and clean them with a piece of cotton wool dipped in an alcohol solution. This way, you will be killing all spider mites that might have been on the spot.
Mist your plants regularly
Besides watering your plants, misting them around is also an effective way to prevent spider mites from surviving. It will increase humidity and wash down any mites that are on the leaf surfaces.
Separate infested from the non-infested
When you have some plants infested by spider mites, you need to separate them from those that have not been attacked. This way, the mites cannot move from one plant to the other, destroying your entire houseplant family.
Now let’s have a look at some examples of popular houseplants that are commonly affected by spider mites and how to get rid of them.
Calathea houseplant
The calathea plant is a beautiful glossy green houseplant that accentuates your house interiors. But things go haywire when the small red spider mites attack it. They slowly start eating into the leaf tissues wreaking havoc on the plant and stealing away its beauty.
You will soon start seeing yellow or white spots on what was once lush green. If that is the case, look at the bottom of your calathea leaves, you will see tiny red insects. Grab a piece of white paper and shake the leaves on the white sheet of paper. You will see the slow-moving, little yet very destructive buggers.
To eliminate spider mites in your calathea houseplants, you could use dish soap, apply neem oil, spray water or mist your plants. You will also need to separate the infested plants from those that are yet to be invaded.
Juniper Bonsai Tree
Among all bonsai trees, the juniper bonsai is the most attacked by spider mites. The annoying thing about spider mites is that they reproduce so fast, leaving your plants at the mercy of a large territory of mites. One telltale sign that you have a spider mite infestation is that you will notice white spots on your juniper bonsai tree. You could also see webbing within the leaf foliage.
Unfortunately, insecticides will not do a great job in exterminating these tiny mites. They will kill all predators that could have been feeding on the mites. And so the infestation will just increase. Bonsai tree care experts suggest using a soap dish plus miticide. Miticide destroys the protective webbing so that mites are exposed to other predators.
Over to You
Spider mites are tiny destructive buggers that could turn what was once a lush green garden of houseplants into a tragic, sad story. You can, however, overturn things by taking necessary action to get rid of the tiny scoundrels. Use Neem oil, keep your plants hydrated, clean your plants regularly, and always remove the infected plants.
If left, they will eat into your plant tissues, slowly killing it. You do not want this, do you?