Garden Pests – Identifying Them on Your Houseplants by Their Behavior
Although indoor garden pests are more limited than bugs in your outdoor garden, they can prove just as stubborn, destructive, and annoying as any creepy-crawly outside. Before you can get rid of them, however, you need to know a little bit about them.
Not all houseplant insects respond to the same treatment. In the distant past, people believed that knowing someone’s name gave you power over them. It’s true for garden pests. Once you know whether you have an aphid or a spider mite, for instance, you can learn what steps to take to get rid of them.
Some garden pests that infest indoor plants are easy to identify because of how they look. At times it’s difficult to go by physical description alone, as many of these insects appear in different colors, a variation of sizes, or even various shapes.
Here’s some help identifying your indoor Grey Garden Bug garden pests through their behavior:
Describe the behavior of the bug. How does it move? Does it hop, skip over the surface, jump, or fly?
Where is it located? Some bugs congregate on the tips of branches, some hide underneath the leaves, others prefer leaf-stem joints, and a few set up housekeeping on the surface or beneath the soil.
What size are the insects? Are the bugs visible or do you need a magnifying lens? Checking your houseplants with a 10x lens is a good habit to develop, as many destructive indoor garden pests are hard or too small to see.
How is your house plant reacting? Are the leaves discolored? Curled? Dropping off? Are there holes, lines, or bumps on the leaves or stems? Are blossoms of flowering plants dying before they open?
Now that you know how these garden pests behave and how your houseplants react to them, you’ll be able to take the necessary steps to get rid of them. The sooner you identify them, the safer your plants will be.
Always take the following steps for Pest Control Companies Near Me insect pest control indoors.
Isolate the plant(s) immediately. Don’t let the problem spread.
Identify the pest.
Research solutions.
Take the least invasive steps first.
Resort to chemical treatments last.
If you have pets and/or children in the house, take extra precautions with insecticides and pesticides.
Dispose properly any chemical containers or bags.
If you regularly check for indoor garden pests; identify them by appearance, behavior, and houseplant reaction; and quickly take the appropriate steps for insect pest control, you’ll have a happy, healthy indoor garden you can enjoy for many years…