Just when you think you’re on top of all the pests that are keen on your houseplants, along comes one that is particularly pesky. Aphids – sucking tiny blighters that target tender juicy new growth. Really tiny, and often the same colour as the tip they are sucking the life out of.
Aphids live all around you, seeking out the ideal conditions to reproduce. They can arrive in potting mix, in new plants, probably not on your dog this time but they will hitch a ride on your clothes when you come in from the garden. Everywhere has aphids just aching to feast on your tender, juicy, precious plants. Except perhaps Antarctica.
It is good to become a planto-chondriac when it comes to living with aphids. Constant vigilance! Remain calm when you see something odd going on with your plant.
Aphids have tiny, evil little sucking mouth parts, so they aren’t goin to attack every leaf – just the newest ones. And flower buds. They will suck so much life from the newly emerging growth that the result will be horribly distorted and pale and will soon die and drop off.
Don’t Panic.
Aphids are best defeated early and often – pay frequent attention to your plants so you can observe and notice a pest early on – before it damages your plant and the infestation becomes hard to control.
When you walk past the plant, check 3 places:
- Underneath the leaf
- The centre of the plant
- The growing tips.
They are the 3 main locations where aphids do their work.
Spider mite
What is it?
Aphid is the name of a group of small, soft-bodied, sap-sucking insects, which includes green aphids, as above, and the fluffy white wooly aphids. The females are flightless and give birth to live female juveniles.
The horror show continues with the female juveniles are BORN PREGNANT without ever having any contact with a male aphid. The scientific term for this is telescoping generations.
The female mature rapidly which allows the little buggers to breed so profusely that it can be hard to keep up. When food availability reduces, or they are overcrowded, the females will develop wings, allowing them to target the next plant in your collection. As the weather becomes cooler, the aphids can spend the winter as eggs, ready to hatch at the slightest bit of warmth.
What does it do?
It feeds by sucking the life out of tender tips, shoots and flower buds as they develop. sap of the plant. This causes the new growth to be stunted and deformed, dying and dropping off. Flower buds attacked by aphids will not develop and will be mishappen and will then drop off.
If left unmanaged, the plant will die.
What are the ideal conditions?
Aphids thrive in warm, moist conditions where plants are actively growing. They breed in temperatures over 10°C and thrive at 27°C. It takes 55 days to go from egg to adult and as conditions become more ideal for them, that will go down to 12 days. One female can lay 20 eggs a day and will live up to 4 weeks, laying every day. That is 560 eggs.
Aphids are particular about their preferred plant, and once an infestation is successful, it will be less likely to go out hunting for another type of plant. My Anthuriums are the target plants in for aphids in my collection. It used to be the syngoniums, until I became tired of them being constantly attacked, so I got rid of all the syngoniums. Now they just devour the Anthuriums.
How can I avoid it?
Keep a close eye on your actively growing plants. This way you can spot any aphids as soon as they occur. Aphids are eaten by many bird and insect predators. Insects that enjoy a good aphid feed include predatory ladybirds, hoverfly larvae, parasitic wasps, green lacewing larvae and spiders.
Pay frequent attention to your plants so you can observe and notice a pest early on – as soon as you see a tiny opaque pale green dot, gently squash it then rinse the whole plant under a tap to remove the others. Do this often to reduce the insicedence of a full blown infestation.
Don’t Panic. Pull out your magnifying glass and have a close look at those tiny dots. When you water the plant, check 3 places:
- The growing leaf tips
- The growing flower tips
- The centre of the plant
How can I get rid of it?
Wipe away the bugs – squash them gently so you don’t damage the tip any further. Wipe away and squish any bugs you see. Water can blast off aphids and discourage further breeding. Water the plant and wash it down in the shower or with a soft watering sprayer – make sure you get into all the surfaces and stems of all the plant. Repeat in a week’s time to break the breeding cycle. If there is a massive infestation on just one growing tip, cut it off, bag and bin the lot.
If your whole green house is infested, investigate the use of Myzia oblongoguttata which is a predator of the spider mite.
I prefer to avoid the use of broad-spectrum insecticides on my houseplants. If you do want to go there, isolate your infested plant, and apply a pyrethrum spray, as per the instructions on the bottle. Be aware that these sprays will also kill beneficial insects living in your plant.
Another thing with pest sprays – as the aphid reproduces so rapidly it is able to adapt and resist pesticides. Prolonged use of sprays become ineffective. These pests are wide spread and very common, in houseplants, veggie gardens and orchards.
Keeping a close eye on your plants and acting promptly is the most effective way to manage aphids.
Here is another solution
I decided to try an experiment – I only have two Anthuriums in my collection now, and they are both growing in water. I place one of them in the midst of the growing plants and allow the aphids to proliferate on that Anthurium. Each couple of days I check to be sure that only the Anthurium growing tips are being devoured, and I squash and rinse the bugs off, and the aphids that survived will proliferate again. When there’s not much left of that Anthurium, I swap it with the other, and allow the damaged one to grow on and recover.
This is my version of using a victim as bait – I know I will never be totally aphid free, and I allow the Anthuriums to take one for the team. So far the plan is working well. I don’t have any aphid damage on any of my other tropical houseplants. I never expect the Anthuriums to do well, but to be the sacrifice for the others.
I’m ok with that.
