The appearance of whiteflies around your flower pots do not necessarily damage your plants. However, left untreated, they can be unpleasant intruders that is hard to get rid of. Before resorting to insecticides or chemicals that can affect your plants, try several natural solutions. Check them out in this article and see how to get rid of whiteflies to protect your indoor plants.
Whiteflies usually make their appearance around the broken fruit but can also be found in flower pots, from where they can not be pushed out as easily.
Natural Solutions To Get Rid Of Whiteflies & Protect Your Indoor Plants
1. Protect the soil with large grain sand
Reproduction of whiteflies is simple: they lay eggs in the wet soil. The larvae stay briefly in pots, then turn into adults.
Now, the safest natural way to break this cycle is to cover the soil from the pots. Thus, you can use large grain sand or even gravel to stop the larvae from reaching maturity.
2. Get rid of whiteflies with vinegar and liquid soap
The simplest trap for whiteflies is a plastic glass with a mixture of apple vinegar and liquid soap. Cover it with a plastic foil fastened with a rubber band. Then, make some holes with a toothpick. Once inside, the muscles will be killed.
3. Capture whiteflies with vaseline
If you can not bear the smell of apple vinegar, you can try another simple trick. Use a white cardboard with the size of a mobile phone. Stick a small piece of wood on it. Make sure it can remain in a vertical position in the pot after it is fixed into the soil. Color the cardboard with yellow. After drying, cover it with a homogeneous layer of vaseline. This way, the color will attract whiteflies and then the vaseline will catch them and kill them.
4. Let the soil in the pots dry
When you have plants that are good for less frequent watering, wet them less and less to allow the surface layer of soil in the pots to dry out as much as possible. When they no longer have the necessary humidity, whiteflies cannot reproduce.
5. Resort to a natural predator
That’s right. It will actually bring a little sense of beauty to your plants. There are species that will love to feed upon these insects. For example, you can consider ladybugs.
6. Get rid of whiteflies with plants
I know, right? You can also get rid of whiteflies by adding more plants. But not any plants, though. For example, nasturtiums or marigolds will definitely repel the whiteflies. Put these plants near the problem area to keep the insects away.
7. Use earthworm castings
You should also consider using earthworm castings at the base of your plants. When you add this to your fertilizer, earthworm castings will repel them within a matter of weeks. And your plant will also benefit from it. Earthworm castings are a rich natural fertilizer. Thus, you will probably get even more flowers as they can stimulate plant growth.
