Using air-purifying indoor plants can be a good thing, and can have its set backs.
How many of you have ever brought home a new houseplant and then noticed that after you have it perfectly situated in a picturesque spot in your home… it get’s happy… then it gets buggy? I was recently reading a copy of Organic Gardening Magazine and they had a great tip about how to take care of this at home! Sometimes when the plant has gotten to its prime, the little nasty fruit-fly like flying insects (fungus flies- how gross does that sound?) start to crawl out of the woodwork- or in this case, out of the dirt. Ick.
Your first reaction may be to take the plant out or try to return it. A little hint here, is that most dirt contains these little critters, it is just how you manage them that keeps them at bay. A low cost, healthy option to dousing a plant with pesticide inside of your home is to create a fly trap. Sounds like a fun project…
Here is what you’ll need to make your traps to keep your indoor plants happy and pest free:
- Medium gauge wire- even a coat hanger will do.
- Pliers to twist the wire into a flat spiral at the top.
- Index card, or cut up cardboard.
- Petroleum jelly or as Organic Gardening magazine suggests, Tanglefoot brand insect trap paste.
Take your pliers and create a little spiral at one end and flatten it. Keep about 2-3 inches of wire straight so you can poke that into the houseplant’s soil. Then cut the cardboard or index paper into small squares and coat it in either the petroleum jelly or the insect trap paste. Stick the sticky square into your spiral and watch the little critters get trapped. Replace the sticky paper as often as you need to until the problem is under control.
