Hi Scott, coffee is the answer! First of all, nothing can beat the taste of fresh coffee...and that smell of the first morning coffee...what could be better. And, after you've enjoyed your coffee, you get a supply of coffee grounds that can be used in the garden.

I've used coffee grounds in and around bromeliads for the last few years, mainly Alcantarea to deter slugs and snails from nibbling the leaves, & it also wipes out mosquitos when it's tipped into the cups. Now, I guess I've used it in moderation, I just shake out the container of spent coffee grounds over and around the plants. It would be interesting to see just how much could be put into (& left in) the cups of broms before they showed any damage. My recommendation would be to use it, & then say within the next 24hrs give the bromeliad a good flush out with fresh water.

As well as bromeliads, palm & cycads can be 'treated' with coffee grounds...this was discussed on the plam talk forum, so I tried it on Dypsis, & a few cycads that were covered in scale. The coffee grounds were mixed with a bucket of water & just poured over the plant...no more problem with scale.

And I've recently discovered another use for them. About a month ago, I dug up an area of garden in our patio, added nice fresh garden mix & planted it out with mini mondo grass...well the local cats just loved it, digging up my fresh garden mix to use it as their litter box...leaving mini modos scattered everywhere...after replanting them many times over, I thought about tipping coffee grounds over the area...and it worked, have not had a single cat visit since. It would be interesting to see if the coffee gounds thing also works with dogs, who seem to love getting into the smelly centre of some broms.

Cheers, -Andrew.

Just found a previous discussion on this...see the link.

Here is a link that might be useful: mosquito breeding

Thanks for the information Andrew! That is amazing about the scale...I now wonder if it will prevent the squirrels from digging up all of my potted seedlings!

Scott

I also thank you, Andrew, for that coffee grounds tip. I will now refrain from nagging my hubby to stop emptying the coffee pot over the verandah onto my broms!

Cheers,
Kerry

This is interesting. I have read that Hawaii has a problem with non-native tree frogs taking over their forests. One solution was to spray them with a solution that included caffeine. Maybe caffeine is also toxic to some bugs.

Yes, that was one of the methods tried to combat the Coquí Frog infestation here, ltecato, but it was pharmaceutical grade caffeine, enough to give a human a heart attack if they got it on their skin, which is why they stopped using it. Too dangerous!

They also tried hydrated lime, but that was too rough on the plants. I think there may have been other tactics tried, but for the moment they are using citric acid, again, highly concentrated. The frogs seem to be immune to the effects of any known pesticide.

Which scale is supposed to work on? Black scale or the tan scale?

I'm glad I came across this post. I'll try it out. Dengue Fever is quite prevalent here.

Does anyone have any other tips involving organic means or common non-toxic household products - to prevent mosquitoes breeding in Bromeliad cups?

The safest way to control mosquitoes is to dump all the water out of them every 7 days and replace with fresh water. Also if they are growing in the ground just completely flush them with a hose.
We also use a product with "MosquitoDunks" it has chemicals in it that naturally occur in soil. Link below

Here is a link that might be useful: Dunks info