spider mites on houseplants

How To Get Rid Of Spider Mites On Houseplants?

Are you experiencing some brown leaves and feeling heartbroken to see your dying plants or sad for its gone green? Pick up a leaf carefully, look beneath, if you can see some tiny white webs or dots moving all around the plant. Beware your plant is under a spider mite attack.

You don’t need to panic as you can get rid of these little monsters (spider mites) destroying your plant but you need to be vigilant to follow some instructions.

Understanding To Spider Mites

Spider mites are little insects that can harm your indoor plant and even cause their death. Mostly they form little white dots all around the plants, these dots can be tan, black, or even red. The worst thing about the spider mites is that their diagnoses are mostly quite late.

They are so small that mostly come to notice when the problem is deep-rooted, and your plant is on the verge of death.

Spider mites conquer your house plants mostly in winter, the reason is they flourish well in a warm and dry atmosphere. With indoor plants, spider mites get that perfect ambiance to flourish so to breed well they capture your indoor plants.

Spider mites are little suckers, as mentioned above they are experts in hiding and mostly hide under the leaves and leave joints. Spider mites are parasites and they feed themselves on plant cells, so they damage the health of your plant badly.

Symptoms To Detect Spider Mites? 

When it comes to detecting spider mites you need to keep in mind that they are quite small in size. So not visible unless there is a conscious effort.

If you are witnessing your plant in a continuous decay with speckling, yellowish, and falling off leaves it means the trouble makers have attacked it.

The first thing which you will observe are small white webs all around the plant. Once you have observed them and look deep into it and you can see small little spiders crawling all around your plant.

Where Do Spider Mites Come From On Indoor Plants?

Mostly when the plant is attacked by spider mites the gardener tries to root out from where they actually came. but I suggest you don’t waste time rooting out their origin, work on their elimination.

But still, if you want to make sense that from where they arrived on your indoor plant the following can be few possibilities.

  • You might have bought a new plant and it was already targeted by spider mites.
  • Or you repotted your already flourishing plant, in unsterile soil that already contained the refugees.
  • Placing your plant outside in summer.
  • Even the vegetables and fruits from your home kitchen garden can bring in the intruders.
  • These small creatures can even walk in your home through windows or even doors.

How Spider Mites Harm Indoor Plants?

Spider Mites are cold-blooded killers for house plants and can even kill your plant before a diagnosis.

They start damaging the plant by making hubs under the leaves, sucking up the sap which ultimately leads to further damage and destruction of the leaves.

Is the stage two leaves start getting speckled, dry, and even shivered up, moreover, leaves fall at the end. Falling leaves cause the plant to come to an end ultimately.

Once your plant is diagnosed with spider mite problems try to make this plant free from them as soon as possible.

First-aid Treatment Against Spider Mites

The first step which you need to take when you diagnose the problem of spider mites hanging out with your plants.

  • Immediately quarantine the infected plant.
  • Check that if any other plant from the surrounding is infected, and quarantine that as well.
  • There are several chemical pesticides in the market that claim to resolve spider mite issues. But the bad news is, that spider mites develop resistance to them real soon.
  • Moreover, these chemical pesticides are injurious to pets and other human resources so using them is not pretty safe.
  • Choosing a natural way to kill pesticides is always a better option.

Below we will mention a few useful treatments and remedies that are safe to humans and pets and still can resolve spider mite issues for you.

Hygiene Measures

Spider mites don’t like cleanliness, on the contrary, they prefer leaves filled with dust and under great water stress. When a plant is under water stress due to lack of moisture that gets prone to intruders.

In order to get rid of spider mite, it’s better that you keep cleaning your plant, especially the area under the leaves. And also keep watering your plants without fail because your plant needs to be well hydrated while they are struggling for their life. Applying a leave shiner can also be helpful.

Make An Unfavourable Atmosphere

You can make your plant safe from spider mites by making the situation unfavorable for them. For instance if they like the dry atmosphere you make it humid. They like it warm, you make it cold.

Using Plant-Based Miticides

You can also take help from some plant-based miticides. The following miticides are developed with collaboration of some nature and science.

  1. Neem oil is extracted from the fruit of the neem tree, It is extracted from an evergreen tree. The good thing about this oil is that it has many other benefits including repelling spider mites out from your plants. You just need to spray it regularly on your plants because it takes a while to kill these plant killers, but when it works it’s very effective. Don’t only protect your plant from spider mites but also other plant harming insects stay away with the help of this natural pest repellent.
  2. Cinnamon oil is another natural miticide. That can help you to kill the adult spider mites without harming animals, humans, and plants. You just need to spray it twice in a week and repeat this spray for almost 2 weeks and you can get rid of all the spider mites. But keep in mind that this nature’s pesticide is not going to work on eggs of spider mites. So you’ll have to make sure that either they can be removed by washing your plants. Or by continuing spray until our spider mites come out of the eggs and get killed by this natural pesticide.
  3. Rosemary oil is a natural miticide and you can safely use it in your kitchen garden plants. As you are going to use further in your kitchen as they are purely non toxic and have no health hazards. Rosemary oil should be used after diluting with water. This spray is going to kill all the spider mites and save your plants.

Herbal Tea Miticide To Get Rid Of Spider Mites

Herbal tea is also tried and tested in protecting your plants against spider mites. The recipe is very simple yet effective what you need is 2 tbsp Italian seasoning, 1 tbsp powdered cinnamon, 1 tbsp powdered cloves.

Now you need to add all these ingredients in water and bring it to a boil. Afterward, place a lid on the pan and wait until it’s lukewarm. Now you need to add some ground fresh garlic about 2 tbsp.

Afterward, when the mixture is cool you strain it and put it into a spray bottle, add a bit of dish soap as well. This amazing tea miticide is ready to use and rescue. You need to spray this mixture thrice in a week especially under the leaves, soon the plant will be free of those deadly spider bites.

Home Remedies For Removing Spider Mites

Do you know that you always don’t need to go out to the market and bring a miticide? You can even make use of some kitchen items and some medicine at home to bring the spider mites down.

  1. A mixture of rubbing alcohol and water can also bring relief to your plant when it is under attack. You can either wipe out the infected plants’ leaves with this mixture. Or you can spray it on the infected plants.
  2. Dilute this mixture according to your plant type. If it is a harder plant you can take 1ratio1 mixture and if it’s a delicate one it’s 3 Ratio water and 1 ratio alcohol will be good enough.
  3. Dish soap and Lukewarm water wash can also do wonders. After washing properly you need to continue this spray for a while as well true to keep the spider mites away.

One Step Counter Attack On Spider Mites

If you are thinking that you might don’t get time for regular spraying miticides to protect your plants. Here is another way which is a one time solution and quite effective as well.

This method may sound a bit scary to few gardeners but it works really well.Buy some predatory mites and that will be your counter-attack on the spider mites as these mighty mites will eat up all the spider mites. And It will save your plants from the brutal attack. You can hier some ladybugs and some mite eaters like lacewings who can do the job for you.

While using this mite eaters way out , keep in mind that you should avoid pesticides. As they can harm these little soldiers too which are fighting with spider mites on your behalf to protect your plant. If you still want to use any, use Rosemary as this replant doesn’t hurt the good insects or your guard mities.

Conclusion

Once you are struggling for your plants life against spider mite attack first of all you will do all the possible treatment and try to rescue your plant. But if you find that the spiders are sustaining and you are about to lose your plant isolate it, and if the conditions get severe, you might have to lose your plant.

But for saving others you will have to sacrifice your beloved plant for the survival of others. Moreover, make sure that you clean thoroughly the area where the infected plant was planted. Otherwise this problem will spread to other plants as well.

FA Qs

How to get rid of spider mites indoors?

In this article I have shared with you a few easiest and effective ways to save your plants from spider mites. You need to take care of your plant hygiene and water them properly. Moreover, to kill spider mites you definitely need to spray it with some natural oils like cinnamon oil neem oil or Rosemary oil. Even a mixture of soap and water can help your plant to get rid of spider mites.

How to get rid of spiders on outdoor plants?

If you want to get rid of spiders on outdoor plants or even make sure that you don’t throw bread crumbs and other food particles. So they don’t get any meals to enjoy . Keep in mind, spiders like to hang out in cardboard boxers avoid keeping such material in the places where you don’t want spiders. Throw them in the dust bin.

If they still manage to get into your outdoor plants you can easily put them away by using any kind of oil, like eucalyptus oil or cinnamon oil. Spiders don’t like spices so you can directly sprinkle a little amount of cinnamon powder or peppermint powder or curry powder or hot chilli powder. They will definitely avoid those places.

You can use vinegar and water mixture as well. You just spray the areas with vinegar and water mixture and that will keep the spiders away from that place no matter indoors or outdoors.

How to get rid of spider mites on tomato plants?

Spray the tomato plants with a good quality horticulture oil can. That helps you to rescue tomato plants from coming out of a disastrous  attack of spider mites. Keep in mind that horticulture oil is not safe for good insects. So don’t spray horticultural oil while they are around, also avoid spraying on some breezy day. that can transport that oil towards those good insects which you might need to protect your plants.

Two-spotted spider mite chemical control?

When your plant is struggling against the attack of two spotted spider mites. The best way is to use natural miticides, if you want to use any chemical one that should be specifically to kill mites. But I suggest the use of natural spider mites is always better for the health of your plant, pets and you as well. The recommended natural miticides are neeem oil, rosemary oil, Pyrethrum and Cinamite.

Hope this article will help you to tackle these deadly intruders and save your plant from their terror !