Cutting the crown will not prevent thrips since they are more often on the foliage than in the soil. If all flowers are disbudded for 2-3 months, that's a start. Then to get the flying thrips, put up sticky cards. Set up a clove of garlic planted just below the surface of the soil. The scent of garlic will inhibit thrips...and vampires!!! Since your small collection does not call for beneficial insects, I would suggest either getting rid of everything, and washing thoroughly all equipment and the place where the plants are or trying to fight them. Disbud--take all buds and flowers off for at least 2 months. Do not add other plants or violets to the area. Use the planted garlic as suggested, and the sticky cards for flying insects. Maybe you could isolate each plant in its own plastic sack to see which plant is hideing these monsters. Thrips are bad in two ways, they suck vital juices from the plant and they carry other virus and bugs on their backs. USUALLY thrips are not a hard insect to get rid of but plants must remain budless and flowerless for 3 months since they eat the pollon. Nancy

Jan - It's best to apply a systemic before the buds form. The Bayer product says it works for 6 weeks. I'm thinking all the rain we've had flushed it out of the soil sooner than that. With that much rain, you probably needed to reapply in 4-5 weeks. As for Spinosad, you can apply it directly to the buds, old flowers, leaves etc. Last year, while my first dark flowers were thrip damaged, subsequent buds that had been sprayed for a few days with Spinosad showed little or no damage. Thrips go for the more mature buds - not the tiny ones. I hope this helps. I stocked up on the Spinosad this year. Debra

Thrips invaded my house in Pennsylvania the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's now January 15th and I've finally had 2 days free of them. I use peppermint essential oil to keep them off me. Off and deet are useless. The ones I killed have been identified as idolothripinae. Native to the Philippines and SE Asia. We buy things from wal mart or online that comes from China, well now their Thrips and Mites are here. And they are very aggressive. I own no plants and it's taken me all of 6 weeks to get to this point. They disappeared for a week or so around Christmas but that is when the Mites, spider and bird were most prevalent. I know that it was warm after Thanksgiving and had a wood stove going to get the chill out of the air. Well it got a little too hot and I stupidly turned on an AC unit. Just for a few mins I thought. I vividly remember seeing what looked like a whisp of smoke float by as I watched football. I smoke, but looked at my ashtray and thought, that's weird, I put that out ten minutes ago. That "whisp" was their eggs. By morning it was already too late. Within a week they had gotten into everything and were crawling "all" over me. Biting, trying to get into my eyes. The mites came about a week later. Craziest thing I've ever experienced. I having no plant knowledge had to find answers and fast as everything on the Internet said they were harmless, and did not bite. Lol. Not only did they bite, 3 eventually got into my eyes. I would have to deal with at least 50 a day trying. They would also spray eggs as they fly by. More than once I'd look down only to see their eggs and fluid across my shirt. They also are very vindictive. Once a couple weeks back after they resurfaced the 2nd time I found they had made a huge nest in a small crevice between cabinets. I sprayed them and killed them with a sulfur h202 and vinegar mixture (figured that one out. Kills them and their eggs all in one.). That night I was about to fall asleep, and thought I saw the whisps. I drifted in and out of sleep. I suddenly felt an urge to get up. I started to sit up and noticed a small batch of eggs just to the left of me on my comforter. When. I sat up completely to my shock they had laid eggs all around my head. On the pillow and comforter. They are some real sons a B's. But now I am adept at handling them, and getting them out of my clothes, since they would nest in my dryers door gasket. Also the were in my vehicle and would hatch when I turned the heater on. Even worse is they would hatch from what looked like perfectly clean clothing I just took out of the dryer while I was at work. Adding some sulfur powder to the laundry fixed that. The car is being helped as we speak with a cold spell we are getting here. Temp has been below freezing for 2 days. 3 or more should wipe them out. So I turned the heat on full blast on the way to work, so that they hatch only to be stuck in freezing temps for 10 hrs while I work. It's been quite the ordeal. But I've learned the internet hides what these things have evolved to. Not to mention the article in 2020 talking of how the military has started using them for farming purposes to inject plants with whatever. Basically story goes they could stop a plague of locusts by unleashing them and other aphids ahead of the locusts, as they eat the crops they are injecting a chemical to stop the locust and whala no plague. The reality is it's a kick ass bio weapon. At any rate if anyone ends up in a situation like mine, here is what I've learned. H202 kills their eggs. Vinegar kills the insect. Combining the peroxide and vinegar creates paracitic acid. Be careful, it will burn some if left on skin. But it really decimates them. Then using wettable sulfur will kill adults as well as repel if sprayed about your home or yard. Peppermint oil alone is the best repellant if they are aggressive and biting. Air diffusers that you can use essential oils with also help keep them at bay but they won't keep them away if they are hellbent. They killed themselves killing my 1st diffuser. Then the ones that didn't die laid eggs all over the interior of the thing. Was pissed but admired their resolve. At any rate hope this helps someone. Lord knows how desperate I was when this became my life for the last several weeks. I pray this last bout was the end of it. I am moving from this place in a few weeks. But they say it only takes 1 female which can lay 10000 eggs, and the party starts all over again. Good luck.

Hello Lopaka,Yes all my plumeria are in two greenhouses.Rooted cuttings in one and all the seedlings ones on heated undersoil with sand.I don't mind using chemicals as there are no pets or children ( but the Provado does say harmless to both)I think I haven't given sufficient air as I've tried to whack the temperature up.Although at the moment we are having a heatwave we don't get really long spells of hot weather in the U.K.Thanks for the advice on the Hatz flea and tick shampoo,if the Provado doesn't work I'll get some.I deliberately watched a minute black fly on one of the plumeria leaves after I'd spayed and it died quite quickly. It's good to get advice from other more experinced growers.Many thanks. P.S. I'm Hazel!