Houston - we have a problem!

Generally the plants come from the greenhouses well sprayed and clean - it is when they reside in a place like Home Depot - they are exposed to the bugs. The most frequent pest is thrips. Watch the blossoms for spilled pollen - if you see it - flick it - and you will see immature thrips scurrying around. Sometimes I see aphids.

The worst thing you can bring on tropical foliage plants are foliar mealy bugs - hard to get rid of them. Look at the all nooks and crannies for white fussy thingies. You can kill each of them by touching with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol,, but they usually leave eggs...

If you can keep your new acquisitons in a separate room for 3 months... whatever is there - you will see it. Watch for thrips like a hawk - they fly and spread around the house easily. Blooming AVs are famous of carrying thrips on their blossoms - so it is a good idea to disbud them before even getting into the house.

It is not that you are 100% protected - but it is important to be vigilant and nip the problem as soon as it shows up.

I've experienced my African Violets getting foliar mealy bug from a painted leaf Begonia which was placed in their vicinity.

Take care ...

Everybody has horror stories. Mine is - we were at the tour the Logee's greenhouses - super interesing. Especially the part how they refuse to use pesticides and are growing ecological plants and releasing predator insects and mites to deal with pests.

I got 4 plants there - kept them separately,... they had soil mealy bugs...ecological ones.... They were not evident on the rootballs from the very beginning - but eggs were there...

thanks everyone! He bought the plants online from bloomscape so no hanging around in a big box store. :)

I tried to research a little about pests, but knew the violet experts here would know the specific threats to my first priority (violets of course).

I'll keep my eye out!