I am going to ask for a photograph to confirm that they are truly horsehair worms. Did they come in with a recent purchase?

Horsehair worms are a parasitoid that require a living host to complete their lifecycle.....the host organisms are usually dead at the end of the cycle. The usual hosts for Gordian worms are grasshoppers, crickets, cockroaches, and similar insects. The adult worms always emerge from the carcass of the host insect. So either you have these insects at your home or they are plentiful at the place from which you purchased your plants.

I'm wondering, of course, if you aren't seeing baby earthworms, which would be a more common scenario.

My choice would be to repot with a fresh, coarse textured potting mix whether the problem is Gordian worms or earthworms.

If these little animals came in with recent plants, I'd be looking elsewhere to spend my money.

Hi rhizo_1,

I would gladly (?) attach a photo if I had one. I have been seeing them when I put the plant in the tub and give it a watering. They crawl out the bottom holes of the planter. I'm trying hard not to water the plant until I repot it tomorrow. At that point, I suspect I'll see some and post a photo here.

This said, I did look them up online (I think I probably googled "skinny worms that live in soil of my plant" -- or something vague like that). When horse hair worms came up they looked just like what I am seeing. Thank you for the actual name: Gordian.

So I bought my plants at Home Depot (I already hear groans) but I have to say, at times I have had pretty good luck with HD. The odd thing is, I bought the plants in Dec., and I've only just begun to see the worms.

I wonder if there was something (ugh, roaches) living in the soil where HD potted the plants.

My house is definitely insect-free, for sure. I can't stand insects of any type.

Thank you for your info and tips.

I wonder, do they spread plant to plant?

Noel

They are only found in very moist conditions, even in standing water. If they are actual horsehair worms, they would have found their way into your plants via one of the insects mentioned earlier, perhaps scurrying around the plant section at Home Depot where plants may be sitting in puddles or are over watered regularly.

Here's the thing: the life cycle is specific. An adult deposits 'eggs' in standing water or extremely moist soil and hatch. They infect their host as soon as possible after hatching so that they can develop inside the body cavity of that doomed insect. It is only by being able to grow as a parasite that the skinny, thread-like adult can emerge.

Those adults, which you think you might have, don't feed on anything. These adults can be several inches long and extremely skinny. The ones that I have seen in mud puddles are dark in color.

Earthworm cocoons can be found in some commercial potting mixes. They hatch within the container and can live happily for a long time, feeding on the peat moss and other organic matter that the potting medium is composed of. Babies can be skinny, very pale, and very wriggly.

Ick! So does this mean that when they die, they are all gone?