Wow, Mike that sounds awful!

All I had was a few scale on three of my seedlings in the house and on my huge Meyer lemon in the greenhouse. I squished all that I could find and then sprayed all citrus with neem + Safer's insecticidal soap. That was about a week ago. Will spray again tomorrow.

Whiteflies and mites. I use a combination of HO, neem, alcohol, protekt, and soap. It's constant surveillance, but they are under control.

Spider mites on indoor citrus trees. Outdoor trees nothing. Whiteflies on my tree collards.

Hi Mikey I have a couple of tree's with some scale . I use a damp face cloth and a tub of water and wash leaf by leaf only problem is I cannot reach the top branches but as long as I keep the situation in somewhat control until the spring when I can really get at them . I cannot imagine having this problem indoors in my home it would ruin the floors and paint on the walls that sticky stuff the scale make is so hard to remove . I feel for you buddy sounds like you had quit the workout no need to go to the gym today . Enjoy the Super Bowl I already know the team your pulling for lol .

Brian

Brian, you are a riot! How did you know I was pulling for the 'Falcons'? haha Lol I know, t's been crazy about here and even the m out depressed souls of my friends are excited for one day...Lol I never get a positive text from one of my buddies..Everything is always "poor me" or "i'm in such a bad mood" and yesterday he says" I am so excited for the game to come" ..I almost passed out! Shows me that he just wines to be heard..lol I am so tired of bugs inside and that is why I only have one or two trees ins arm rooms..It is just too much work, let alone with my other plants I have to keep warm. It only takes ONE point forgotten to spray in fall or one hijacked bug, or one plant infected from a store and it's bad for everyone..It's a constant look over your shoulder kind of thingy..I am glad any plants in the greenhouse can be sprayed easily or wetted, and the others can be kept very cool. Thank God or I would throw out more than half my plant collection..I hear you about your trees being too high to reach! I'll bet you can't wait to get can't wait to get them outside for the summer. So much easier buddy!!

I got all the snack for later and whipped cream..loil I never eat like that but tonight it's all about the snacks and commercials..lol..How do you like that ...Lady Gaga will do the half time..lololol Let;s see if she crosses the line with all of America watching..lol

Calamondin..Mites can be so stressful Good luck with those!

Laura, sounds like you have all the stops up your sleeve..Good for you. Just being aware of the problem is a star, let alone trying to get ahead of it. Great job.

Vladimir..Sounds like a plan..Today would be a good day since the sun won't be out anyways..I am glad you are going to spray again quickly to kill any eggs that might of hatched..Good job

Mike, I am looking forward to the game, too but have a lot to do before then. Have to spray all my citrus. Just discovered more scale on my flying dragon seedling. Also, the figs I kept in my cellar that were supposed to be dormant decided to start leafing out so I have to move them into the greenhouse. Problem is, two of them in 26 inch pots need to be root pruned before I move them. Those suckers must each weigh 100 pounds and I have to carry them up through the bulkhead to the greenhouse.

I just started 6 satsumas from seeds from store bought fruit. Also have 5 lemon drop seedlings that I started for fun knowing they do not breed true. They each have about 5 leaves. Wanted to throw them out but my enabler wife would not let me. She feels sorry for them.

I have had to deal with the warnings sign of spider mites (didn't actually see them but saw some dusty debris on top of some tall trees), and nasty cushiony cotton scale- a new one for me. I seem to have eradicated the regular scale I normally contend with, plus the hort oil treatments have completely killed my fungus gnats. So all in all, it has been a pretty good winter so far.

Aphids for me this year.

Cory

I've had to contend with brown soft scale; they always seem to blow up in population without the natural predators that lurk outside. Repeated neemings usually fix the problem, but I'm not a fan of doing that indoors because it gets stinky (and messy).

Spider mites have not been a problem at all this year, interestingly. I hit my plants with a spraying of abamectin before I moved them indoors in November, and I haven't yet seen a spider mite (even on the most prone of plants--the banana).

Aphids like my peppers, but don't really bother my citrus at all. Spring and its predators can't come soon enough!

-Tom

Fungus gnats and minor thrip attack. Was a bit concerned about fast moving little buggers in my soil, but after I did some research I found out, that they are some sort of soil mites.

So what I read they are good fellows?

Well I must of burned several calories over the weekend! Lugging over 80 plants down the stairs to the bath tub to treat them for mealy bug..Seems that almost every thing near the window had some of them. Ugh! I am glad the plants are now cleaned and the room cleaned too. Now I will just spray Neem and Alcohol every week once a week for three weeks to make sure nothing comes back. What a pain. Thank God my Citrus Trees are in places where I don't have to worry about anything!

Tom , I see you have had to contend with pest too..I was wondering on another thread..I am glad you know what to do to keep them in check!

Brian,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

buddy!

Lady Gaga was awesome..She did a nice clean show and was amazing@! I hope you watched the game..I have to tell you that is was the best games I ever saw and it broke all kinds of records! Tom Brady's 5 ring..It was the first time a Super Bowl went into overtime, and the Patriots came up from a 25 point deficient to clench the game within two minutes in the last quarter!! Never saw anything like that! Tom Brady was very emotional and who can blame him? The parade is tomorrow and I might sneak down to Boston to watch it! My God, I had no idea you played Football up there! Learn something new all the time..lol Pizza was a must buddy and so was wine! So was chicken fingers as suggested and lots of whipped cream on my deserts! I would of loved one of Maggy's Lemon deserts that night. That is all I thought about..lol I wish Maggy lived closer and Laura here to try their cooking abilities...We are suppose to get snow tomorrow turn to ice then rain after ice all day..Just great...Lol 55 Wednesday and then a snowstorm on Thursday I hope.

I had wanted to spray all my trees with All Seasons Dormant Oil to prevent any kind of infestation in my greenhouse, but I have that frog. So I have to cover that pond with plastic when I do so that run off does not flow into his tub of water.. Hugs buddy!!

Hello Everyone,

I received my order of Ladybugs today. Yesterday I thought I cleaned every aphid off my trees but there seems to be more than ever today. Ladybugs to the rescue!

Still asleep

Waking up

Hard at work

And hungry

Cory

Mike, I feel your pain about lugging plants in and out! I'll be hauling my trees out this Friday for a hearty neeming (it'll finally break 60 out here for the first time since November). Your efforts definitely show in your plants' health, though!

Cory, that's awesome. Easy, convenient, and everything (but the aphids) wins! Now if only I could raise parasitic wasps indoors to kill scale...

-Tom

Yesterday I found out that I've still not got rid of thrips. Ficus microcarpa bonsai still had a few of them. Big fat little creepers.

Rinsing with soapy water as first aid. Lucky its a small plant, so its easy to keep them under control; as long as they dont spread to other plants..

Fungus gnats have been a big trouble, but couple of weeks ago I found out small fast moving critters in my soil. I did spray with soap water, and after the treatment I did some google-search just to find out they are good fellows... Some sort of soil mites. Hypoaspis miles or something like that.

Now they are in every pot I have, and havent seen only a few flying fungus gnat. Even the sticky traps have catched only a couple! In december I needed to change the traps every week or so.

Aphids. Soap spray weekly on my four winds New Zealand lemonade tree.

6b Steve

Steve, I have been spraying with alternating sprays of soap, neem, HO for weeks and I still have them. I doubt the ladybugs will be able to keep up with them either, but it is fun to watch them. Trouble is, now I can't spray.

Cory

The lady bugs will surpass your pest very rapidly. They breed, lay eggs, and as soon as they hatch the larva eat your pest at a rate of a growing teenage boy. Much faster than the adults do.

6b Steve

I hope so Steve.

Looks like an aphid buffet for those lady bugs! It's amazing how fast they can get rid of them. I was tempted to buy some last year, but had some volunteers hanging around.

Good luck!

Any plans for the new generation of ladybugs?

I haven't seen any yet eSilviu.

Cory

How are those ladybugs doing Cory?

Well, only about 25 seemed to be alive when I received them. I thought maybe the others were hibernating but no action with them yet. I emailed the seller about it. I do see the live ones on the plants near the aphid outbreaks and they seem healthy enough. I'm not sure they are really eating the aphids though even when they are crawling over them. Mostly they seem to like to walk along the edges and veins on leaves and don't seem to be paying attention to the aphid swarms. Maybe those aphids are already dead from me spraying water on them? Maybe I will see a difference in the aphid population soon I hope.

Cory

Amazing sight, Cory!

I found some kind of worm eating my mandarinquat fruit tonight. It ate one fruit in half, and started on another. I cut off the infected area, fruit and all, and will inspect it the tree good come tomorrow morning.

Dave, take pics of the worm if you can and post. I have not seen worms on citrus. It will be another info in our knowledge box :)

I squished it and threw it out already. It was a little worm munchin up the baby fruit. Some cobweb was under one fruit on top of a leaf, not small threads like spider mite would leave, but more like cottony look.

If I find another one tomorrow morning I'll take pictures.

Cory, the last time I ordered Lady Bugs, they left my Roses alone and took off for higher grounds in someone else's yard!! The same with Praying Mantis..I releases thousands of them 3 years ago all over my yard, ponds plants and plenty of places to grow and hide, and I have yet to fin just one adult..Where the heck do they go?

I was thrilled to see the ones you do have on those Aphids!! I encourages me to see that it's true that they love those pests...

What you shouldn't use to fight them critters is farm fresh fried eggs and warm tea.

from what I've read, it is really more the juvenile lady bugs that eat the aphids. I have certainly watched the adults crawl all over a plant and go right past the aphids. And then fly away.

Also, the praying mantis are said to eat beneficial bugs, too. I always have a few PM in my garden but have yet to see them in action. They really are hard to spot.

My aphids and spider mites are staying on a few tasty plants, but so far have left the citrus alone. But then, I haven't inspected them yet today. :\

hibiscu What are your tasty plants. Maybe we should all be growing those plants so the critters leave our citrus alone.

6b Steve

I heard from the company I got the original shipment of ladybugs from and they sent me a replacement batch. These were very much alive and unlike the first batch went straight to the aphids and are doing a good job. The first ones didn't seem to know what an aphid was and just walked past them. Not these!

They climbed straight up the tree to the aphids hanging out on the flowers and new leaves. Sorry, I forget to take pictures of them vaccuuming up all the aphids and my battery ran out. These ladies can fly too and have spread out to all parts of the greenhouse. Unfortunately one of the resident spiders spun a strand and caught about 15 of them in a matter of minutes. I knocked down the thread as soon as I saw them trapped in it but am not sure the ladies escaped. They are fun to watch but I already spend way too much time in the greenhouse. I hope they like it in there and stay a while.

Cory

Cory, are you kidding?? Of course they would love it in there just as I would..Hey, I wonder if they eat spider mites or what beneficial does and how long they live for or if they even cast babies in time?? Nice job! Must be fun to watch, like a kid all over again)))

tasty stuff for the pests:

Hibiscus and Peppers are magnets for aphids. Despite my username, I only have a few hibiscus. They rarely rebloom, so I don't even know why I keep overwintering them.

Sweet potatoes (ornamental) and elephant ears
always get
spider mites. The bananas usually get them too, and are easy enough to
wipe
down, but it’s really a constant battle and you never get them all.
Strawberries are a HUGE spider mite magnet, and it seems like a bunch of
other pests, too.

The chartreuse leaved things seem to attract
whiteflies. So, the sweet potatoes and elephant ears, again. You could
probably cut back the foliage at some point to remove them.

Ideally I spray all my plants with water (physically remove
pests) and then a soap spray before moving indoors, but the soap spray often gets skipped due to
time.

I've got a question concerning thrips. I've got a minor thrip problem with Ficus microcarpa but I got rid of them from that plant with soap water and a little pruning.

Yesterday I found out that the tamarind(Tamarindus indica) had a few of those suckers. I snipped of infested leaves and changed the soil(it already needed the be changed though). I gave it a good bath in soapy water, roots and all for 30 minutes. Hopefully this measures do some good.

Does thrips attack citruses? I know there is a specie called 'citrus-thrips'(thanks to google), but I didnt find out if "regular" thrips does infest the dearest ones?

All I had was a small infestation of scale in the house and in the gereenhouse which I got under control by scraping them off and spraying with neem/insecticidal soap mix.