I have a 15 year old 5 ' tall Grapefruit Tree that has been living happily in a large pot in a south facing window. In the last 4 months it has begun to deteriorate. The larger leaves are turning dry and brown on the edges. Some of the new smaller leaves are turning now too. They eventually fall off. It has probably lost 30% of the leaves now. I tried repotting, thinking the roots might be bound. This hasn't helped. At closer inspection I see that there are hundreds of tiny brown bugs in the soil, but apparently not on the leaves or trunk. They are only 1 mm long, shinny and do not appear to fly. There are no bugs on the undersides of the leaves, nor are there any webs or nests. But the soil is loaded with these tiny bugs. I tried insecticidal soap, but a rose growing friend of mine said it only works on "soft" bugs, not bugs with harder shells. These are shinny, so I assume they are hard but I am just guessing. I really care about this tree, in fact it's 1 of only 3 houseplants in my home! Can anyone offer any ideas? Thanks so much in advance! Mary
When you re-potted did you rinse all of the infested dirt off of your tree or move it with the plant? If you moved it with you may want to consider removing the infested dirt from the plant, running it through the oven in a tray type pan at about 160-180 degrees until it is bone dry and the same temperature of the oven all the way through to kill the bugs before re-potting. This will keep you from having to buy all new dirt which may contain pests anyways. If you have a hose that will run very gently, you should wash off any excess dirt on you plant roots while protecting it from the sun - use a tarp or just stand so you shadow covers its roots - and put it directly into a bucket of a water solution when you have gotten most of the dirt off. You could soak your plant roots in some Garett Juice concentrate or a similar plant feed that can double by killing any bugs sticking to the roots and dirt in the roots and as the first watering solution you use after re-potting if you strain it through some sort of cloth to remove any bugs that may still be there and could have survived the dip. While you are waiting on the oven and cooling, make sure you swish the solution in your bucket around every once in a while to put more air in it for your plant. Scrub out the pot it is going into and if it is ceramic you can actually put it in the oven with your dirt - but not with the dirt in it. If you are not oven treating the pot, you may want to invest in distilled vinegar which you can use to clean your pot without too much danger to yourself - make sure you wash the pot out very thoroughly after doing this because the distilled vinegar may not be good for your plant. Distilled vinegar is cheap and makes a great all purpose house cleaning agent, so you may already have some! (This is actually something you should do with any pot that you reuse. It's not a must - and is not necessary more than maybe 15% of the time - but it can save some grief on plant loss.) It is very important that if you try this, you must let your dirt and pot cool to about room temperature before re-potting. If the dirt is hot you will bake your plant roots. If the pot is still hot, the heat will permeate your dirt and still bake the roots. You can set up a fan to blow air on the pot to cool it faster or set it in some cool water if you are impatient (most plant pots will not crack from this, but if you have a very thin one or a glazed pot this is not a good idea). The dirt pan you can place in water that isn't deeper than the pan in the sink or stick in a plastic bag that is microwave safe (so it doesn't melt) and float in cool water. If you have carpet, this is a good time to also clean your carpet and/or spray it with a product that kills insects in carpets and won't kill people - which should help in keeping the bugs gone if they can live outside of the soil. Again, this is my suggestion, but there are probably much easier fixes which others know and can share with you. This solution should be used only a last resort or if you have to go cheap due to your budget. Since you have already re-potted once, the strain of doing so so soon after the first time may be hard on your plant. Check your other houseplants for these also...if they all have them you may need to treat all 3 at the same time (which would probably be a good idea even if they do not have them at this time...just in case).
Thank you so much for the informative reply. I am going to try repotting this week. I can buy potting soil that has been sterilized. I will look for some Garett Juice too. I'll post my findings after I am done. I hope it helps! Thanks again...mary
