Green tea for succulent?

10 years ago

Hello! I have a lovely E. Black Knight that I got recently around 3 weeks ago. It's been very healthy, up until today, when I noticed that the very top bud opened up. I checked it out and saw some damage on it! I got a closer look and ended up picking a bug off of it. It was small, light pink, and very simple looking. I had spraying 70% isopropyl alcohol on the plant in mind, but I asked my mother for advice and she said that spraying it with green tea was a good, non-chemical way to treat bugs. I couldn't find anything about it anywhere on the internet, so here I am. Would green tea work as an insecticide? Would it harm my succulent?

Featured Answer

User

10 years ago

Lol Liz

I prefer coffee myself.

In any case, most sprays work by suffocating the bugs in plants so pretty much anything will kill them. Alcohol is best because it kills quickly and evaporates really fast, thus preventing collected pools of moisture in the rosettes.

Just water takes a long time, judging by how long it took this one aphid to drown in a tablespoon of water. It even managed to jump out and I had to pour another tablespoon of just water. Hot coffee works faster but it's a waste of coffee and it's the heat that killed it, not the coffee. Alcohol, oil spray and ammonia immobilizes them instantly and succeeding sprays kill them. Smaller insects probably react the same way.

Long term solution? Let spiders grow in the yard and every spring, release a bag of ladybugs.

Pagan

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Comments (7)

nomen_nudum
10 years ago
Stick with the isopropyl repeat if needed. A well steeped ( 175 F/79 C ) tablespoon of Jasmine pearls would be strongly suggested for your own enjoyment.
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mesembs
10 years ago
I haven't heard anything about green tea, but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt. You might even consider making it an experiment!
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Frank
10 years ago
I have not heard of using green tea either, but thinking about it, maybe the tannins in tea could have something to do with it?
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Liz (Virginia z6b)
10 years ago
Most green tea is farmed with a ridiculous amount of pesticides which remain in the tea leaves, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was effective. Please update this thread if you decide to experiment as palmsandsnow suggested.
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Frank
10 years ago
Found this, very interesting.

Tea-based pesticide works as well as chemicals
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User
Original Author
10 years ago
I sprayed the leaves with the green tea! It evaporated pretty quickly and it didn't seem to harm the succulent. I'll update this thread if anything else happens! Thanks for all of the feedback!!