Morning, Everyone, Pet...AWWW, Mr. Frog sounds adorable. Yep, I'm sure the frog is used to warm areas. A FL native. Too bad you couldn't keep it as a pet... :) A. fasciatas are beautiful Broms, and will live forever, if babies are removed, placed in seperate pots. Neoregelia's are also gorgeous, but I've never had luck removing their children. Do you see babies? Is it flowering? Good luck, Pet.. PrairieMoon, The thing about lemon is, the scent deters insects, including ants, roaches and fleas..and of course, house plant bugs. Lemon won't kill bugs, however they dislike the scent. One site advised squeezing lemon juice in holes/cracks where insects hide out. lol. Lemon is used for cleaning, whitens laundry and supposely kills mold, bacteria and germs. Which is also beneficial to plants.. Listerine works like lemon..deters bugs..Optional. Before my plants are brought indoors, I add generic Listerine. Believe me, I HATE insects..plant bugs and outdoor types. Spiders, Earwigs, etc. I don't know if EW's dislike lemon and mouth wash, but spiders can't stand it..BTW, vinegar kills spiders on contact. I'd rather not use chemicals, so when a spiders get inside, I grab my vinegar bottle and spray away. Spiders roll up then died. Sorry, to all you spider lovers.:) Do you purchase plants at different nurseryes/green houses/stores? I've seen employees spray, 'surely not plain water.' A local gh has sprayers that lightly mist plants every half an hour. Ever notice residue on leaves? You can bet the residue is from insecticdes. I wash plants off ASAP. Can't stand touching chemicals. Eggs are hard spotting, especially if ones vision is not 20/20. Still, when I buy plants locally, I check upper and lower leaves, stems and near plant base. Sometimes, mold is present. You're lucky you have a room to isolate..Don't worry about proper light the first 3-days to 1-week. I've done a LOT of online ordering. 98% of the time, an info sheet is included. So far, every article I've read says the same thing. Place new plant in shade the first 3-days to 1-week. After the plant is situated, it can go in its permanent location. So, no need to worry about light while plants are isolated. Write a note to yourself reminding you to water. lol. Does 'g' stand for grin??? Cheeseclothe is a great idea, but I can't find it. lol. Can't tell you the number of sprayers gone bad when I chopped garlic and placed in mixture. Even tiny hot pepper clogged the nozzel. I had to remove cap, then wash and remove particles with a tooth pick. lol. That's the reason I now add a clove of garlic the night before spraying Still have difficulty with red pepper, 'when smaller misters are used,' but it's worth a few seconds to clean ut. To top off misting, I buy inexpensive, crushed hot pepper. .99 a bottle or two for 1.00, then sprinkle outside plants with hot pepper. Also, when I mix soils/mediums for repotting, I add Cayenne Pepper in the soil mix. lol. Prarie, we've had ants problems 4-5 years. I spray with vinegar which kills on contact. Remember ants and mealy work together. I also add 1-2 drops of dish soap in plants kept in shallow saucers w/pebbles and water. One last thing. I have 15 or so old, 'cleaned' milk and vinegar containers filled with water. So, when a plant needs a drink, water is room temp, ready to go. When containers need refilling, I add a couple drops of dish soap. Please don't think I spend a million dollars on dish soap. lol. I buy generic soap for 1.00 sold at Jewel Grocery Store. Considering the amount of soap and vinegar used, the cost isn't much....safer than Raid, etc. Prarie, when my Hoyas had mealy, I dumped every last piece of soil and pots. Once winter arrived, plants inside, mealy returned. Yep, Rhizo knows about spiders. She found a Black Window in her LR this last summer. GROSS and SCARY.. Don't like spiders, pedes, or small bees..think they're called Honey Bees..those stingers got me good one day when I turned a window-box filled with water, over another plant. I didn't know bees made a home in the drainage holes. After water was dumped, those stingers were everywhere. Other bees don't bother me. Not really. I used to be terrified of all bees, even though I was never stung. As far as spiders and pedes, I've been terrified of those long legged pests since childhood. And will to the day I'm in heaven. :) PM, Good luck. I hope thie recipe works. You may need two applications, one week apart. Toni

I just wanted to add my own experiences to the mix. I have been taking houseplants and a couple of tropicals out for the summer and back in for the winter for about the last 6 years. I am an organic gardener and don't use pesticides. Once I read an article suggesting you could just put a drop of water in a spray bottle with some strained garlic and water and spray with that. That worked fine but I really didn't have any visible insects or disease going on, it was just as a precaution. I've used that same spray in the past when I did have something eating the leaves and wasn't sure what. The last few years, I've done nothing more than spray the plants very carefully, with just water, careful to include the underside of the leaves, with as strong a spray as the plant will tolerate, inspect it very well, and remove the top couple of inches of soil and replace it before bringing in. Last winter I don't remember seeing any bugs at all in the house. This year, I did notice one spider that isn't a type that I normally see in the house and I don't know if he hitched a ride in one of the plants. That was it. In the garden this year, I had initial outbreaks of aphids on roses but I quickly saw ladybugs show up and barely saw another aphid the rest of the season. I did have a few Asian beetles that gave me a headache and I tried to keep the numbers down, by going out after dark and flicking them into a cup of soapy water. That worked out fairly well. I did have some foliage damage, but nothing I couldn't live with. I had earwigs a few years. I mulch a lot, and I think I read they are attracted to mulch. I kept up with them with a cup of soapy water after dark too. This year, I had more caterpillars than I've seen before. The little tiny green ones on roses and hardy hibiscus, and I just hand picked those off. Interestingly, I had a Carolina Wren in the garden this year. I read that they eat mostly bugs. He was a cute little thing with a pretty song and some funny ways. In the spring, we have had an infestation of winter moth caterpillars on the Maple trees for four years now. The last two years, a flock of Starlings have shown up and I can see them hopping in the canopy eating the caterpillars. I think I have a gourmet buffet of food for birds out there. [g] I seem to manage to just let it all work itself out. I'm surprised that I can do the same thing with the indoor plants, but it does seem to work out just using mechanical techniques rather than chemicals.

These mites are beige...the babies appear white but since I started this post I saw a couple adults and they def are soil mites. Not a surprise since I used Repti Bark to make my medium - they do not sell pine bark fines in my area. Obviously I will discontinue that practice! However, since you bring up predatory mites...I did see that once in one of my plants. I have no idea how it got there but boy, it sure did move fast. Even faster than the soil mites. Unfortunately I killed it before I realized what it was. I felt guilty after. But I must again ask of you more experienced indoor gardeners, is it normal to have to deal with pests all the time?

That's scary about the bat bite killing the little girl. I never thought of it biting us in our sleep but this little guy was about as big as my thumb or smaller -- and his teeth were barely visible so it's no surprise she did not feel it's bite. The cat found a country cousin of my mouse visitor. Needless to say, that one was not released. I wish those darn hammar traps worked but my guys are so little that they get the PB w/o setting off the trap. I really wonder what type of mice these are. I referred to it as a field mouse but this is incorrect. All four that we have seen in the past 5 months or so have had an oblong body about the size of my thumb, small ears, small eyes, a slender face, and long tail. They are not eating any human food (or dog or cat food for that matter). I don't know what they ARE eating just that they aren't in any of my food. I keep imagining some gigantic rodent will make himself visible one of these days -- did you ever see Steve King's NightShift?!?!?!? LOL BTW the cat stays in the basement -- otherwise, being a ferral cat, he'd be an excellent mouser. Too bad the mice aren't afraid of dogs -- we've got three and they're useless (for rodent control).