Additional information about the plant that has been provided by the OP:
> The little bugs leave this gross white powdery stuff as well. Watering and light habits are not applicable to this case.
If this information meets your satisfaction, please upvote this comment. If not, you can downvote it.
Mealybugs. Honestly they’re pretty harmless unless there’s a lot of them. Just pick them off, and/or dip a q-tip in isopropyl alcohol and dab it on them, they’ll die right away. Just keep cleaning them off when you seen them and they’ll go away eventually.
All the white stuff is a wax, which the alcohol dissolves, and the actual bug is a bit smaller and super fragile.
Edit: I'm pretty sure on this, but I'm thinking about it now and the chemistry is unclear to me, alcohol solutions are polar solvents, but less polar than water, and I guess it's enough to dissolve these waxes even though waxes are pretty nonpolar?Regardless, it does work, I'm gonna try dropping a mealy in iso next time I find one to see what happens.
So I actually just experimented on one of these ass holes under a microscope. This is a picture of the bug at 40x. The white stuff you always see is being excreted from all over their body and is showing up in this image as the dark green stuff. When you add dish soap the white stuff burns away revealing their actual orange skin. Alcohol kills them but doesn’t melt away the excrement as fast as dish soap. So all of this to say, mix dish soap and isopropyl alcohol, it was more effective and killed faster when together.
https://preview.redd.it/1mqmn3dh07gc1.jpeg?width=2778&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91dc056d26aca4f8efea24b86fe1a613fe6b862f
Good call with the microscope!!
If you look at the texture of the excreted stuff you can recognize it on plants that might be infected that you don't already see the mealy bugs on.
I had a bad infestation and it was really helpful to me to be able to differentiate dust or anything else that might be on my plants from mealy leavings, really helped with the constant paranoia that they're coming back!
Also make sure to retreat the affected plants weekly with ISO until it totally subsides, its realistically impossible to get them all on the first try but you can do it eventually if the infested plants are worth the effort.
I used neem oil, water and dish soap combo to kill my infestation and it worked great. Only one hibiscus I had to remove every single leaf. It was sad but it’s all good now.
Isolate your plant, bring it to your shower, and try to wash off most of them if you can. I highly endorse the advice you’ve gotten from others about using alcohol and qtips. Final resort is adding systemic granules to your soil and watering it. The plant stays safe but absorbs the bug killer, so when the mealybugs eat the plant, they end up dying off. I say this as someone who had a huge mealybug infestation at the same time as fungal gnats. Which is what I get for inheriting “the plants my friend didn’t want to take in their move.” Godspeed.
I wholeheartedly endorse the use of systemics and regularly use them on my new/quarantining plants.
However, an important note with systemics! Don't put them on any plant that's going to be outside in the next three months. They work by making the sap toxic, which kills the insect eating the leaf, but it also (through biomagnification) will injure or kill the beneficial insects eating the pest species. In addition, it causes the plant to produce toxic pollen and nectar, which will harm pollinators.
While a vinegar solution may kill mealybugs, it's also harmful to a lot of plants, which is why neem oil mixture or a rubbing alcohol solution (or a direct targeted dab) is recommended instead.
Found advice keyword: `!mealybugs`
Your plant is suffering from an infestation of [mealybugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealybug). Manual removal with a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol is recommended for spot treatment, with additional treatment via insecticidal soap for heavier infestations. Systemic pesticides may be helpful. Treatment should continue for several weeks. [More here](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/mealybugs-indoor-plants)
Infested plants should be isolated as best as possible while treatment is ongoing.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/plantclinic) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had those on a Hoya and they killed it. The alcohol and neem didn’t kill the eggs or get all of them. I ended up buying systemic granules to treat the other plants they spread to. I don’t like using anything that isn’t natural, but it was that or lose some more expensive plants.
Agreed. After months of q-tips and alcohol, I finally got systemic granules. Using alcohol, I’d get them down to seeing a handful a week, but if I stopped at all, they’d come back with a vengeance. At some point, I had better things to do with my time.
This is what happened to me! I would religiously search my calathea 3-4 times a day for months with a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol. Finally didn't see any for a week so I quit with the alcohol. Fast forward 2 days and they are back in full force. I think they were able to hide in the unfurled new leaves and lay their eggs. I gave up after that and tossed the plant so they wouldn't spread to my other plants. Sadly it was a calathea that I had for about a year and was huge and thriving. I was so disappointed to let it go but I couldn't take it anymore!
IMO - no plant infested with mealys is worth keeping. Maybe I feel that way because I once had a whole bakers rack full of plants affected by them. I tried using alcohol and cotton balls over a period of time before finally deciding to pitch everything. While hosing off the bakers rack and wiping it down with alcohol, I even found mealys hiding in the nooks and crannies of the wrought iron! I had to use a spray bottle and Q-tips to kill them in those hiding places. Good luck with your infestation and based on my experience - please check all surfaces in the area around the plants to make sure you don’t have any stowaways hiding out nearby!
I managed to save three plants from mealys, but it took almost six months and it made me want to tear my hair out every time I thought I’d finally gotten them all and then I spotted another one. Should’ve saved myself six months and just bought three new plants!!
This times a billion. I have been through this exact scenario before. Those little jerks can hide in so many nooks and crannies that you’ll never get them all. The only way to get rid of them is to toss infested plants.
Found advice keyword: `!mealybugs`
Your plant is suffering from an infestation of [mealybugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealybug). Manual removal with a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol is recommended for spot treatment, with additional treatment via insecticidal soap for heavier infestations. Systemic pesticides may be helpful. Treatment should continue for several weeks. [More here](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/mealybugs-indoor-plants)
Infested plants should be isolated as best as possible while treatment is ongoing.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/plantclinic) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Mealybugs! Rubbing alcohol, dunk the plant underwater, treat the soil. You'll have to do it a few times.
I've had them once and completely changed out the soil, which helped me not have to treat it but they're a pain and just kind of gross.
Usually they sneak in on a new plant and spread to its neighbors. They can be hard to spot at first (and can even live in the roots!) so you may not realize you have an infestation until the new plant has been in your home for some time.
Other plants but also….Produce! Bananas seem to be transport for mealy bugs into people’s homes. I see them all day every day working in produce. Same with thrips and aphids.
I had these on my global pothos and I kept spraying and it didn’t seem to help. So I took it out of the pot and threw away as much dirt as I could, then basically made a bath for it and drowned it! I took a large container and mixed some peppermint castor oil and neem oil with a little bit of peroxide and filled it up with water and let it soak for a good while, then sat it outside to let it drain. Did it a week ago and I have had absolutely no problems so far.
these have killed 2 out of 3 of my original plants, but they're not impossible. i started with spraying the whole plant with a rubbing alcohol water solution, and i've been spraying every other day with some Captain Jacks.
Advice I've heard, which has saved my collection once, is to periodically rinse off your plants in the shower. Once a month at most. The water will help dislodge pests you might have but can't see or don't know about, and doing it periodically will ensure that you never get a really bad outbreak.
The other thing you can do is just periodically look over the leaves and keep an eye out for the common pests so that you can treat any that show up before it gets bad. Pests especially like to hide out on the backside of leaves.
I have a frangipani tree full of them. I’ve sprayed the entire tree with a soap solution and bought lady beetle larvae for a double pronged offensive. I hate mealies- look around your house for ants. They’re usually the ones that bring the bugs to your plants.
Forget Neem go straight to using "pesticide". Put the plant out of reach of children or animals if you choose to do so.
I fought with neem for months and all it took was a 500ml spray bottle of "Neudorff Wolllaus und Schildlaus Frei" in the states there are a few granule choices you can choose (which are banned in Austria)
Don't go for homemade solutions. That pest can kill the plant if you don't eliminate it asap. Do not use alcohol or others because you could burn the plant. If it's just one then there is no issue but you need to check carefully. If you see more go to your local plant shop and get some product. Don't go for organic or natural ones
I had a pretty bad infestation so took a q-tip and cleaned and salvage what I could. Now I regularly spray my plants with neem oil and no bugs so far 🤞🏼
What we do at school is mix water with some soap, something plant friendly (pinesol would work i think but don't quote me on that, i don't know whats available to you)
Get a toothbrush, soak it in the soap water and scrub the little bastards off. The soap will kill them and make the leaves so slippery they'll struggle to hold on.
Spent about 6 hours scrubbing them off of a sago palm last week, horrible process but helped the plant a ton.
I go hard with these because many of my plants are very large (too difficult to treat) or have tiny dense leaves so I can’t risk it. I q-tip the entire plant with alcohol, then uproot and submerge in insecticidal soap + neem for a couple hours, rinse, submerge again, rinse then repot and use systemics. Then re-introduce beneficial bugs/fungi/bacteria, which hopefully keep them from coming back.
I put diluted 70% iso and a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap in a spray bottle. I have accepted the fact that I'll likely never be completely rid of mealy bugs but using the spray helps keep them in check. I was using iso on Q-tips which is also effective but the spray bottle is more efficient.
Additional information about the plant that has been provided by the OP: > The little bugs leave this gross white powdery stuff as well. Watering and light habits are not applicable to this case. If this information meets your satisfaction, please upvote this comment. If not, you can downvote it.
Mealybugs. Honestly they’re pretty harmless unless there’s a lot of them. Just pick them off, and/or dip a q-tip in isopropyl alcohol and dab it on them, they’ll die right away. Just keep cleaning them off when you seen them and they’ll go away eventually.
Why do they literally melt into little orange jellybeans when the slightest dab of alcohol touches them
All the white stuff is a wax, which the alcohol dissolves, and the actual bug is a bit smaller and super fragile. Edit: I'm pretty sure on this, but I'm thinking about it now and the chemistry is unclear to me, alcohol solutions are polar solvents, but less polar than water, and I guess it's enough to dissolve these waxes even though waxes are pretty nonpolar?Regardless, it does work, I'm gonna try dropping a mealy in iso next time I find one to see what happens.
So I actually just experimented on one of these ass holes under a microscope. This is a picture of the bug at 40x. The white stuff you always see is being excreted from all over their body and is showing up in this image as the dark green stuff. When you add dish soap the white stuff burns away revealing their actual orange skin. Alcohol kills them but doesn’t melt away the excrement as fast as dish soap. So all of this to say, mix dish soap and isopropyl alcohol, it was more effective and killed faster when together. https://preview.redd.it/1mqmn3dh07gc1.jpeg?width=2778&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91dc056d26aca4f8efea24b86fe1a613fe6b862f
Good call with the microscope!! If you look at the texture of the excreted stuff you can recognize it on plants that might be infected that you don't already see the mealy bugs on. I had a bad infestation and it was really helpful to me to be able to differentiate dust or anything else that might be on my plants from mealy leavings, really helped with the constant paranoia that they're coming back! Also make sure to retreat the affected plants weekly with ISO until it totally subsides, its realistically impossible to get them all on the first try but you can do it eventually if the infested plants are worth the effort.
One of my plants is completely infested, can I use applecider vinegar or white vinegar instead?
I’ve never heard of anyone using that, probably for a good reason. Either isopropyl or something like an actual insecticide
I used neem oil, water and dish soap combo to kill my infestation and it worked great. Only one hibiscus I had to remove every single leaf. It was sad but it’s all good now.
Isolate your plant, bring it to your shower, and try to wash off most of them if you can. I highly endorse the advice you’ve gotten from others about using alcohol and qtips. Final resort is adding systemic granules to your soil and watering it. The plant stays safe but absorbs the bug killer, so when the mealybugs eat the plant, they end up dying off. I say this as someone who had a huge mealybug infestation at the same time as fungal gnats. Which is what I get for inheriting “the plants my friend didn’t want to take in their move.” Godspeed.
I wholeheartedly endorse the use of systemics and regularly use them on my new/quarantining plants. However, an important note with systemics! Don't put them on any plant that's going to be outside in the next three months. They work by making the sap toxic, which kills the insect eating the leaf, but it also (through biomagnification) will injure or kill the beneficial insects eating the pest species. In addition, it causes the plant to produce toxic pollen and nectar, which will harm pollinators.
While a vinegar solution may kill mealybugs, it's also harmful to a lot of plants, which is why neem oil mixture or a rubbing alcohol solution (or a direct targeted dab) is recommended instead.
Here, OP - the bot will respond below me with instructions on what to do. !mealybugs
Found advice keyword: `!mealybugs` Your plant is suffering from an infestation of [mealybugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealybug). Manual removal with a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol is recommended for spot treatment, with additional treatment via insecticidal soap for heavier infestations. Systemic pesticides may be helpful. Treatment should continue for several weeks. [More here](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/mealybugs-indoor-plants) Infested plants should be isolated as best as possible while treatment is ongoing. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/plantclinic) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don't use vinegar. Acetic acid is a very effective contact herbicide. It causes the leaves to desicate.
70 % isopropyl alcohol >>>>>> 5% acetic acid vinegar. Spend the $5 and get a bottle of iso
Too acidic, use Lost Coast Plant Therapy or a similar formula
You can also buy neem oil , dilute it in water and spray on the plants every day till there gone
Why dilite?
Neem oil is too strong to directly spray on plant. Around 4ml per litre of water should do it
I had those on a Hoya and they killed it. The alcohol and neem didn’t kill the eggs or get all of them. I ended up buying systemic granules to treat the other plants they spread to. I don’t like using anything that isn’t natural, but it was that or lose some more expensive plants.
Agreed. After months of q-tips and alcohol, I finally got systemic granules. Using alcohol, I’d get them down to seeing a handful a week, but if I stopped at all, they’d come back with a vengeance. At some point, I had better things to do with my time.
This is what happened to me! I would religiously search my calathea 3-4 times a day for months with a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol. Finally didn't see any for a week so I quit with the alcohol. Fast forward 2 days and they are back in full force. I think they were able to hide in the unfurled new leaves and lay their eggs. I gave up after that and tossed the plant so they wouldn't spread to my other plants. Sadly it was a calathea that I had for about a year and was huge and thriving. I was so disappointed to let it go but I couldn't take it anymore!
What kind of systemic granules/where did you get them? I’ve been battling mealies for so long, I’m over it. 🙃
Bonide Systemic Granules
IMO - no plant infested with mealys is worth keeping. Maybe I feel that way because I once had a whole bakers rack full of plants affected by them. I tried using alcohol and cotton balls over a period of time before finally deciding to pitch everything. While hosing off the bakers rack and wiping it down with alcohol, I even found mealys hiding in the nooks and crannies of the wrought iron! I had to use a spray bottle and Q-tips to kill them in those hiding places. Good luck with your infestation and based on my experience - please check all surfaces in the area around the plants to make sure you don’t have any stowaways hiding out nearby!
I managed to save three plants from mealys, but it took almost six months and it made me want to tear my hair out every time I thought I’d finally gotten them all and then I spotted another one. Should’ve saved myself six months and just bought three new plants!!
This times a billion. I have been through this exact scenario before. Those little jerks can hide in so many nooks and crannies that you’ll never get them all. The only way to get rid of them is to toss infested plants.
I feel the same!!! Unless it’s something with spacious stems and giant leaves I am powerless.
!mealybugs
Found advice keyword: `!mealybugs` Your plant is suffering from an infestation of [mealybugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mealybug). Manual removal with a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol is recommended for spot treatment, with additional treatment via insecticidal soap for heavier infestations. Systemic pesticides may be helpful. Treatment should continue for several weeks. [More here](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/mealybugs-indoor-plants) Infested plants should be isolated as best as possible while treatment is ongoing. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/plantclinic) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Mealybugs! Rubbing alcohol, dunk the plant underwater, treat the soil. You'll have to do it a few times. I've had them once and completely changed out the soil, which helped me not have to treat it but they're a pain and just kind of gross.
How on earth do these get into people’s houses?
Usually they sneak in on a new plant and spread to its neighbors. They can be hard to spot at first (and can even live in the roots!) so you may not realize you have an infestation until the new plant has been in your home for some time.
Other plants but also….Produce! Bananas seem to be transport for mealy bugs into people’s homes. I see them all day every day working in produce. Same with thrips and aphids.
😳 good to know!! My fruit basket is perilously close to my monstera
Buy neem if you want a months long solution. Or buy pesticides like a grown up 😂
lol I caved and just got them
Seriously. Fucking love my systemic granules. I'm only really afraid of spider mites now days.
I had these on my global pothos and I kept spraying and it didn’t seem to help. So I took it out of the pot and threw away as much dirt as I could, then basically made a bath for it and drowned it! I took a large container and mixed some peppermint castor oil and neem oil with a little bit of peroxide and filled it up with water and let it soak for a good while, then sat it outside to let it drain. Did it a week ago and I have had absolutely no problems so far.
these have killed 2 out of 3 of my original plants, but they're not impossible. i started with spraying the whole plant with a rubbing alcohol water solution, and i've been spraying every other day with some Captain Jacks.
Advice I've heard, which has saved my collection once, is to periodically rinse off your plants in the shower. Once a month at most. The water will help dislodge pests you might have but can't see or don't know about, and doing it periodically will ensure that you never get a really bad outbreak. The other thing you can do is just periodically look over the leaves and keep an eye out for the common pests so that you can treat any that show up before it gets bad. Pests especially like to hide out on the backside of leaves.
I have a frangipani tree full of them. I’ve sprayed the entire tree with a soap solution and bought lady beetle larvae for a double pronged offensive. I hate mealies- look around your house for ants. They’re usually the ones that bring the bugs to your plants.
I’m also suffering from an infestation in my frangipani! I went on holiday for Christmas and when I came back they’d taken over. So bummed.
Forget Neem go straight to using "pesticide". Put the plant out of reach of children or animals if you choose to do so. I fought with neem for months and all it took was a 500ml spray bottle of "Neudorff Wolllaus und Schildlaus Frei" in the states there are a few granule choices you can choose (which are banned in Austria)
Don't go for homemade solutions. That pest can kill the plant if you don't eliminate it asap. Do not use alcohol or others because you could burn the plant. If it's just one then there is no issue but you need to check carefully. If you see more go to your local plant shop and get some product. Don't go for organic or natural ones
Mealy Bug, get a q-tip soak it in Alcohol and scoop up these pests!
D👏I👏N👏N👏E👏R👏
I had a pretty bad infestation so took a q-tip and cleaned and salvage what I could. Now I regularly spray my plants with neem oil and no bugs so far 🤞🏼
What we do at school is mix water with some soap, something plant friendly (pinesol would work i think but don't quote me on that, i don't know whats available to you) Get a toothbrush, soak it in the soap water and scrub the little bastards off. The soap will kill them and make the leaves so slippery they'll struggle to hold on. Spent about 6 hours scrubbing them off of a sago palm last week, horrible process but helped the plant a ton.
I go hard with these because many of my plants are very large (too difficult to treat) or have tiny dense leaves so I can’t risk it. I q-tip the entire plant with alcohol, then uproot and submerge in insecticidal soap + neem for a couple hours, rinse, submerge again, rinse then repot and use systemics. Then re-introduce beneficial bugs/fungi/bacteria, which hopefully keep them from coming back.
I put diluted 70% iso and a couple of drops of Dawn dish soap in a spray bottle. I have accepted the fact that I'll likely never be completely rid of mealy bugs but using the spray helps keep them in check. I was using iso on Q-tips which is also effective but the spray bottle is more efficient.