Hello, It's almost time to bring my cacti & succulents in for the winter. Last year I had a small problem with some gnat type of thing breeding in the soil of my Euphorbia triangularis. I had several months of finding these gnats in every room of the house. I have used gnatrol to kill the eggs and had pretty good luck with that. My question is what do you all recommend to use on both cacti & succulents before bringing them inside? The winters here in NY are not mild enough to leave my plants outside. I have seen several things that are not safe for succulents. Thanks in advance.
i aways get a spray bottle with rubbing alcohol and mist the soil and and wait about an hour for it to dry and spay half diluted hydrogen peroxide and half water so it will be about 1.5 % i dont think it will hurt them but i would wait for some one else to post cut it mist not be good for them
Besides the rubbing alcohol kinghedes suggested, I have read Murphy's Oil Soap works well on cactus and succulents without any harm to the plants also.Try Googling Murphy's Oil Soap for cactus:)
I also have tried rubbing alcohol on succulents, and it's always worked well for me. Haven't ever tried hydrogen peroxide or murphy's, but those sound like great ideas.
I recently re-potted 3 succulents that I bought at a grocery store. They all came in one little pot and after a few months I decided they needed their own space. I am now noticing in all 3 new pots that there are little yellow round capsules on the top of the soil. I broke one and it was sort of hard, and almost reminded me of an egg. I am wondering if these capsules are actually some kind of pest egg? I found a couple posts on Google about others who found similar capsules, but everyone told them they were part of the soils fertilizer. I am not sure how this would be possible, since they were not there when I planted the succulents and have just appeared in the last couple of days. Does anybody have any clue what this might be?
It does sound like what your seeing is some timed release fertilizer that looks like little round yellowish greenish eggs. Maybe when the plants were re-potted the "eggs" were more covered with dirt and you couldn't see them that well until the soil was watered a few times. A photo would help id them for sure though....
Slow, or timed release fertilizer provides nutrients your plants need over a period of time as the outer coating melts away over a period of a few months before having to re-apply more:)
