Repelling Bugs

There are few things more frustrating with inside plants than to find bugs on them. Not that I don’t find bugs on my outside plants, I am still picking Japanese beetles off my roses early morning but inside bugs can quickly take over if you don’t nip them in the bud. As the saying goes.

The most common indoor bug is the mealybug. These look like a furry tip of a white cotton swab or white furry roly poly bugs. You tend to find them at stem junctures and under leaves, where they suck sap out of plant tissue. Higher numbers produce honeydew, a sticky substance you will find on nearby surfaces. You can remove by hand with water or cotton swabs dipped in alcohol, which also kills off the baby bugs.

The second most common, and tough to tackle, indoor bug is scale. Think mealybug with armor for one variety, and soft limb bumps for another relative. There are over 1,000 different scale species in North America and you don’t want any of them on your inside plants. Because they don’t move and can look like bumps, check your plants by gently scraping any bumps you see on trunks. Scale is easy to remove by hand if you catch it in the early stages.

However. If you find plants with heavier infestations, and as you prepare plants to bring them inside for winter, there are several options besides using a pesticide or insecticide that may also be harming our health and environment.

As a beekeeper, I look for options that won’t harm my bees but still gives me a little help with unwanted hitchhikers. For the second year in a row, I am using a spray of Neem oil applied to the underside of leaves. Neem oil get absorbed into the plant and the plant then helps to kill off the bugs eating them.

I also remove bugs by hand or cotton swabs in alcohol to get to those hard to reach areas.

Neem Oil Plant Spray (.05% strength)

• 1 tsp neem oil (use pure, cold pressed oil)

• 1/3 tsp insecticidal soap or other detergent

• 1 quart)warm water

My backup spray is simple water with a few drops of dishwashing liquid. I only apply at night after my bees are in their hives. A few drops of dishwashing liquid in water is the humane way to kill bees although I have never had to try it.

One of the ways to reduce outside bugs is to plant a diverse mix of cover crops, which some do in early fall. According to Steve Swaffar, executive director of No-Till on the Plains, the more diverse the cover crop mix, the more likely there will be significant natural pest control. The cover crops provide habitat for predatory insects, and the greater the diversity of the cover crops, the greater the diversity of beneficial insects.

Don’t do it all yourself. Plan to hang birdhouses early spring and you will have a ready workforce to eat bugs.

Charlotte Ekker Wiggins is a beekeeper, gardener and sometimes cook. Published by El Dorado Springs Sun with author’s permission. Copyright 2018, all rights reserved. Contact Charlotte at gardeningcharlotte@gmail.com with your questions and comments.

SNEAKY BUGS – Mealybugs attach themselves to one of my little indoor moth orchids.

A LITTLE DAB ’L DO YA – A few drops of Neem Oil in a water-filled spray bottle is a good option to battle indoor bugs.