Crickets won't hurt you, but many pesticides have the potential to cause health side effects (even "natural" remedies are not always healthy - remember that mercury, arsenic, and lead are found in nature yet clearly not good for humans!). I personally feel that pesticides are completely justified if you are fighting a harmful pest like mealy or scale, but crickets really are not enough of a threat to justify the "nuke it from orbit" approach in my opinion. I would suggest unpotting the plant, knock the soil off it, hose off/rinse the plant well with lots of water (roots and top growth) then repot in clean soil. I feel it's best to start with clean soil any time you bring a plant from outdoors back in, since you never know what might have gotten into the soil and even if you do use a pesticide it might not kill off everything.

I'm assuming you're talking about tropical hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), which need at least 4-5 hours of direct sunlight to bloom. A few questions: How long have you owned it? Is it root bound? Where do you have it in the summer? How much and what kind of fertilizer do you use? Since it's not blooming now, it may not bloom for you until the spring. In the mean time, there are a few things you can do to give it a good start then. Once you've answered the questions I (and others here) will have a better idea of what advise you can use. Barb

Vtandrea, I am working with several of my plants that are cupping, and I have a few pest problems that may contribute. I may start dumping pots to check for root growth, as I suspect this may be a soil issue. All of of the plants that have my new potting medium show no issues. This could be a lack of the plants ability to absorb water and nutrients to send to these outer leaves. If someone here has experience, I would love to hear. I will post this in other forums also. Ed

Bareness is due to there being something lacking in the cultural environment. As far as "so big" is concerned these get a lot bigger than this, if you intend to keep it even smaller than it is now you are doing to be fighting the plant's genetic imperative the whole time. If you search "hibiscus care" on the web various pages about growing tropical hibiscus plants come up. What they really want is to be outdoors in a suitable climate or at least in a warm, bright and humid greenhouse. Nevertheless the municipal library in my town used to have one of some size - as in maybe chest high - located right in the center of the main room that survived and even flowered, without being in close proximity to any windows.