I have recently purchased a Majesty palm tree, and it seems to be doing very well. This thought ended when I looked in the pot and found a colony of small centipedes. Today when I checked again, I found fruit flies in the soil, and white mite-like creatures at the bottom of the palm tree's trunk. Later, an earth worm jumped out of the pot. (I don't know how) I was worried about the palm tree, so I watered it with dish soap mixed in with the water. It seems that the craze of insects has died down in the past hour, but I am not so sure. Any idea on what I should do,/why/how the bugs got in the plant pot?
If it gets worse you may have to take the plant out of the soil, wash all the soil off the roots and re pot into soil again. But you should find the source, maybe they were in the soil the whole tie from the nursery?? Ed
Most likely the bugs got into the soil where ever the plant started out, or where it was being sold, it happens a lot! You might want to try another method without using soap or chemicals by placing the entire pot down in a larger bucket of tepid or slightly warm water up to the rim for an hour, all or most of the creatures should come up to the surface for air, then just spill them out over the side. You might have to do this more than once.
Well, I got impatient with the bugs, and poured a small amount of dish soap in. This seems to have done the trick at the moment, but now after reading your posts I feel guilty for killing the centipedes for no reason. :( If the bugs seem to come back, I will try the warm water trick on once a day. The reason why I got impatient, was because the palm was in my bedroom, and I couldn't sleep knowing that flies, mites and even centipedes were less than 10 feet away from me.
I'm not saying that they would of killed the plant, I'm just saying that sometimes you have to choose whether to kill pests or let them ruin or kill a plant that you paid money for, thats all. Just trying to help : ) Ed
Yay! Well, I dug around in the Majesty palm's pot with a spoon, and I found no sign of any bug-life. It seems that my soap-water treatment did the trick! :)
