Mandy, I wish I could help you - any pictures of the varmints? I came to this thread because I do have spider mites on many houseplants I bought in early winter from big box stores during distressed sales, and I've been fighting spider mites for the past few months. I'll be honest - they're all in a room where sometimes they are forgotten for a week or more at a time so they get dry and stressed, and the mites don't get noticed sometimes until they've gotten down and dirty. But when I have found them and use the spray I bought (can't recall the name, got it at WalMart, in a green bottle) really well and wipe the leaves down, it keeps them off for a while. Then they show up on another plant. I'm just tired of fighting the spider mites - already have enough on my plate (2 toddlers, I work, I'm not the best organized, and we got a bit flooded in the recent rains, so I'm in "purge" mode) and want to know your thoughts on my choices: First off, is there such a thing as a total cure, as in they're not coming back? Or will this be a constant battle now that they're here? I don't remember my mom ever having spider mites with her plants, but she didn't have a lot of plants either (maybe this is why). Can I give them a good treatment with the spray and offer them on freecycle to anybody who would want to try to rehab them (with full disclosure of what they might be taking in), or is that just giving the mites the opportunity to infect somebody else's stuff... and therefore I should just toss what I have in the trash and save everybody the trouble? I know I will be giving the heave-ho to some fancy ivies (two kinds of "King's Choice" and "Gold Baby" which I thought were pretty but look a little bit ratty now), two earth star plants (just had pups), a Janet Craig dracaena that is in very good shape, a Pilea (Moon Valley) that looks awful but not because of mites (I just don't know what to do with it - I think it needs pinching and re-rooting but I'm never good at that so it's got legs a mile long and a few leaves at the top), a couple of diffenbachia (no mites), and maybe some more if I can make myself let go of them (corn plant that has a lot of mites on it (getting treated tomorrow), couple of little dracaena marginata, another spotted dracaena I brought back from near death, and my three red sister ti's in a pot but I don't think I can give them up... yet. Thanks in advance for your input. Terri

Shamae, How big are the bugs? I know you posted a photo, but without something whose size is known (like, for example a dime or a penny or something) placed beside them to provide context, it is hard for us to understand what size your pests are. Spider mites are roughly the size of the dot over the letter "i". They are very hard to see with the naked eye and hard to view in a photo, though once you're used to seeing them, you can flip over a leaf and look at the underside of it and see the tiny mites on the plants then. Sometimes, folks new to spider mites aren't sure if they are seeing spider mites and we tell them to hold a clean white sheet of paper underneath a plant leaf and thump it. Tiny insects the size of a period will fall onto the paper and begin moving, and if that happens, they likely have spider mites. It actually is easier to identify mites on plants by the damage they do than by seeing the mites themselves. If you can tell us more about your pests, perhaps we can help you with an ID. If, by chance, they are the same size as spider mites, I'd suspect chiggers, but the pests in your photo look larger....more like the size of aphids? Not that I'm saying they are aphids, but rather that's just the size they are. Are you here in OK? Was your compost wet or was it dry? The more info you share, the better we might be able to help you figure out what it is that you're seeing. Or at least what it isn't. Dawn

Harry...I recently tried spraying full strenght rubbing alcohol on some that are on my plumeria. They never batted an eye! I've tried nearly everything on the market, within reasonable costs, and home made crap as well. You also have to rotate the products you use or the pests will soon shrug it off. I thought mites were tough. I don't believe there is any pest more tough and adaptable than thrips. It's a battle that will go on forever. Even the big money pesticides($200+)/pint have no guarantees of cleaning them out. If a plant is not too large and you have the time and the patience...get a bucket of soapy water and a wash cloth and start cleaning the leaves by hand...even branches. I've done this more times than I care to remember and it is the only way I've found to get rid of a particular outbreak. It's only a break in their cycle though. Most of these pests go thru several cycles and can be found in your soil, mulch, gravel/dirt on the floor, and on the plant itself. Not all methods work on all cycles. It's brutal and they have the upper hand. Systemics don't even always work and growing fruit trees, you need to be careful what you use and when...and there's still a doubt whether it is safe or not, a few claim they are...or whether it will kill the mites. I used a good systemic on the plumeria and it didn't slow them down a bit. Where do you draw the line in the sand? I had them on my bananas in the greenhouse one year. I purchased Cali predator mites and they pretty much irradicated the mites on the nanas. There was no evidence of them on the plumeria all this summer. Why now? How now? Beats the he!! out of me. Humidity? Forget it. You've all heard how high I keep my humidity in the greenhouse. No affect at all on mites. The only thing neem has done for me is to make every object and surface around the plant a sticky mess. Hort oils were not much better. So what to do? Try everything and rotate them. Make sure whatever you use can penetrate their little webbing. Blast your plants with the hose before bringing them indoors. Try beneficial nematodes. Forget ladybugs and green lacewing larvae...waste of time and money. The predator mites may benefit but you have to look at their environmental requirements. You could look into one of the more nasty fogger type pesticides. Pop that off and shut up your garage and turn off all fans. Your garage is not attached to the house so you don't have to worry about anything making it inside. You need to make a stand before the population gets out of control and spreads to other plants. Try to keep plants from touching in the mean time...hard to do I know. Sorry to have rambled on guys but this has become a personal war for me...and I can't stand losing. I will never win this war...I just need to keep at the rebels long enough to wear them down some.

Oh whew...I am so relieved to read that nobody thinks they are spider mite webs. Whew, whew!! Is there some definitive way to determine mite webs vs spider webs? Thanks TJ. You are right. And I haven't sprayed a thing, good or bad, in the last 15 years with the mentality of "come what may" but this yard has been trying. I have never seen so many good and bad bugs in my life...and in the last month resorted to BT to kill the hornworms that are decimating my tomatoes and since I'm spraying anyway, I bought the neem which I'd read up on here. It appeared to be pretty innocuous overall, so that I used along one fence where most of my succulents live in light shade and dappled sun--that's the area where both of these photos were taken. None of it was sprayed on my edible or flowering plants, as I read that neem can damage blossoms... The only thing I have consistently used except when I lived in SF was snail bait and they seem to be having quite the blast anyway this year. Jean, we sure do! I can't confirm my neighbor ID'd what she saw correctly but upon hearing that and about two minutes before I ordered neem, lol, I did google it and Japanese Beetles were spotted in the Sacramento area, right above me, per the CA Dept of Ag. I only read one article but that was close enough for me! Ken, my spiders are year round, I'm afraid. January has much less than the other months but there is no month where I can't find spiders crawling on my plants or webbing here and there. Come spring, there's virtually no plant I can't find a spider on or at least evidence of some spider having been on it. That said, I still find it really bizarre that at this yard, for the first time ever in my gardening life, I have not seen ONE aphid. Spiders are not predators of aphids, are they? I've never seen a ladybug here either..probably because there are no aphids. Not complaining but I find it so bizarre! Thanks again, folks!