I am infested with flies!!?
Question:I have these little flies in my houseplants. They seem to be in the soil. When I water or shake the plant they come flying and crawling out. So I re-potted ALL of my plants and rinsed the roots in soapy water and gave them all new fresh potting soil, Suprisingly not killing any of them! Yay! But now, two weeks later I see the little buggers in a couple of my plants. What the heck. I also got to looking really close and there are little larvae in the soil...they are whitish clear with a black head. They are really tiny. From what I have read, they seem to be fruit flies. What the heck do I do. They are driving me absolutley bonkers. I have also tried to let the soil on my plants dry out to see if that takes care of them. Plants start to wilt, so I have to water eventually and whammo...there they are again. im gonna go crazy if I cant kill them!! Help me. I will try anything at this point. Aside from getting rid of infected plants. I have a lot!
Answers:
Put a 1/2" or so of sand on top of the soil. Potting soil is usually pretty loose and when the bugs hatch they can crawl up through it. The sand is a lot heavier and "most " of the time will prevent them from crawling up to the surface. They stay underground and die.
I don't know have u tried bug repellent ...it may work!
you can try to get some insecticide specially made for house plants,they sell it at any hardware store,just ask any worker and you should be able to find an insecticide that wont harm your plants
Go online in some third world countries you can still get DDT. If you cant find that try napalm!
I haven't heard of anyone getting an infestation such as you describe.There is a soil steriliser called Basamid, which controls nematodes in soil.It might work on your problem.You need to spray leaves with Target or similar.I would ask your garden center for what you might use there?
Might these be spider mites? I have raised fruit flies in a biology laboratory and don't recall them being attracted to plants. You have cleansed your plants and soil without ridding yourself of the infestation; it may be time to buy a houseplant insecticide that lists "spider mites" on the label. I was not successful in searching for an image of a spider mite, but they typically love houseplants. I have had to spray houseplants to rid them of spider mites, but I do not recall what I used.
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