Came back from vacation to find these webbings set up along a bunch of my indoor fern fronds crawling with little beige guys. They’re to small to look at but big enough to see moving. I’m guessing nymphs of some sort of mite?? Anything you guys recommend doing? I don’t see any plant damage besides the expected little bit of thirsty plant stuff from me being gone. I figure to have reproduced so much anything harmful would have already shown signs of damaging the plant itself. Thoughts? Leave them be or do something? I’m all for letting nature run wild with natives but this plant is far from native and stays indoors year round so uh, yeah I’m not opposed to purging anything on it lol. The photo shows maybe 1/2 the total webbing and tiny guys I’ve found on it so far. Doesn’t seem to have spread to nearby plants but it could also just be this is a species that only makes webbing when reproducing.
by Cyan_Lotus
45 Comments
Extremely harmful. Spider mites. Yes, there is plenty of damage that you cannot see. You will be able to see more damage after you rinse the leaves really well with water.
SPIDER MITES! Bad bad bad bad.
God speed.
Spider Mites. Can be wipe off with a warm wet washcloth. They thrive in low humidity. They will eventually kill what ever plant they infest.
spider mites. bad infestation. get to work immediately, or plant’s dead.
Those are spider mites and they are rapidly killing your plant. Immediately isolate your plant, remove them and start treating your plant. Spider mites are the only pest that have successfully killed my plants before.
Nope nope nope. It will suck the hell out of your plants life. Shower them every day.
Yeah spider mites :/
You can get rid of them though!
First of all isolate it and inspect your other plants for them too. They can be hard to see but have a look. Especially at the base of the leaves and the underside.
I wrap the pot with plastic Wrap and the fill the sink with lukewarm water and a few pumps of dawn dish soap.
Hold the pot and drown the bitches. Gently swish the leaves around and rub them under water for five minutes. If you can’t get all the leaves in at once rotate the plant and go again for another fives minutes. This isn’t harmful to the plant so don’t worry about that. Don’t rinse the soap bubbles off. Let it air dry with no direct sunlight
Repeat that every 3-5 days for 3 treatments total
I also recommend captain jacks dead bug spray, it’s cheap and you can get it on Amazon. Spray after the plant has finished air drying
In what world would this be beneficial
r/houseplantscirclejerk would have loved this.
My bad, and my apologies. I admit I didn’t read the story, I just saw cobwebs. I completely own that, I was a dick
Ooooofffff. You have a plant emergency on your hands right here. That is a *bad* spider mite infestation. You need to check all of your plants. Isolate everything with even a little bit of webbing on it. Hose them all off and treat everything with a pesticide. Personally, with how bad this plant is, I’d be treating everything whether I found mites on it or not.
As many others have stated, spider mites.
Harmful.
I call those “vacation mites” because when I went on vacation for 3 days they killed one of my large bushes. It was wild. They work super fast. Spider mites SUCK!!
I have never successfully treated spider mites. They are always back in 2 weeks. This is harsh, but once I see spider mites, I toss that plant
The plant version of bed bugs. Rest in peace.
The worst
If you have other plants there’s a high likelihood that they’re also infested. And make no mistake, this is a bad infestation and will 100% kill the plant. It will take consistent treatment to rid yourself of them. Good luck.
Guys, a plant at my local dispensary is so frosted and webbed with spider mites I gasped.
They have a reception area full of other beautiful plants too!
When I pointed it out, dude said “yeah we’re aware”.
WHAAT!?
Definitely spider mites…had them like that on my Croton plant not too long ago. Took the plant into my shower and rinsed them off with the detachable shower head. Then treated every other day with a 60/40 alcohol and water solution for 2 1/2 weeks. Successfully got rid of them but they definitely did some damage before finding them.
Flamethrower time.
Failing that look up “phytoseiulus persimilis”, worked an absolute treat for me.
who has the barbie meme 😭 bc that was my face when i saw this
https://preview.redd.it/wt1wwhenrxcg1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd37fcd0f3af4596dc64e0cf87bb35033086119e
Spider mites homie!!
I cleared mine up by wiping the plant with a diluted alcohol and water solution then spraying neem oil clean and placed in a sealed plastic trash bag for a few days .
Really bad! Get rid of them and make sure you isolate that plant from any other ones before it spreads.
all you need to do is coat the plant completely w/ either alcohol/water, insecticidal soap/water, or any combo of the above. every 4-5 days as the eggs hatch out. rinse and repeat. from leaf tips (back and front) to soil. it’s a pita, but effective treatment.
i use a makeup brush, make up a gallon of mix of 1 part 70% isopropyl to 2-3 parts water, some dashes of safer’s soap) dip the brush in, and just lather the bejeesus out of the plant. every nook and cranny. then either rinse and repeat, as above, for a month or so, or start using an alternate, like sulfur dust, etc. . every plant in the house.
no guarantee they won’t pop back up-they’re ubiquitous. can come in from outside, and they can travel quite far like a baby spider using webbing as a ‘sail’.
the most common bane of plant heads 😉
You rn apparently 🥲
Hose that fucker down
Sad to say, but you figured as wrong as you possibly could lol
Other than thrips, spider mites are about as bad as it gets for plant pests. They’re absolutely awful, and they -will- wreck all your other plants if you don’t isolate that one immediately.
Cooked.
If you have plants around it becareful. Also I would steam clean the area around there.
https://preview.redd.it/iqvt7i39xxcg1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=47bec46cf454d1cff798859397d34a2b5a93d5b0
Move out. Burn the whole place down.
Definitely not beneficial
Despite how bad it is for the plant, the webs are strangely beautiful!
Spider mites. Put that palm in the shower, spray with an insecticidal soap (I like bonide, live in the USA) let it set for a bit and then hose the plant off in the shower. I would also use bonide systemic granules in the soil, and repot the plant in soil. Inspect all of your plants thoroughly for spider mites. If you don’t see active webbing, check the backs of the leaves, that’s where they hang out. Treat all of your other plants with the systemic granules as well. I use them in all of my plants regardless of infestation. I mix it into the top inch of soil and water thoroughly. I haven’t had a bad infestation in any of my plants since I started doing this. Works well with fungus gnats too!
Wipe off those webs and get predatory mites ASAP!
> beneficial
Lol
If it’s that bad most of your plant in that room are infested
once you clean them off I recommend getting beneficial mites that will hunt down and kill the rest – Neoseiulus californicus
Girl, you’re lucky if the damage hasn’t already been enough to kill the plant.
oh okay cool lol, I see. Nothing scarier then opening my phone to 70+ reddit comment notifications 😭
Burn your house down
As someone who has been battling treatment-resistant spider mites for YEARS…the only successful way I’ve fully eradicated them was to release predatory mites in my home.
Once you have an infestation this bad…you need to take extreme measures if you want to save your plant, I’m sorry to say.