Early in my indoor plant growing, house plants then making up my collection seemed to be thriving, but whenever they were watered, tiny worm like objects would jump about, leaping out of the soil in great numbers before they settled back as the moisture entered the potting medium. I watched anxiously, using various well-recommended insecticides. My plants continued to play host to this mysterious group of visitors without apparent injurious effects… on the visitors by the insecticides, or on the plants by the visitors.
I tried to describe the small objects to an employee in a local nursery (who must have been as lacking in practical gardening experience as I), and received the airy and knowing diagnosis “mealy bug.” To remedy the condition, I was told to “use alcohol.” I did. I poured alcohol on the soil in each pot… quite a bit, just to do a good job. How to use it hadn’t been mentioned, and I had forgotten to ask.
Although the pest identification was far afield (it was actually, I found, a visitation of “springtails,” generally acknowledged as harmless and found in some soils), the remedy for mealy bug was the right one, if my plants had been infested with mealy bugs. But NOT as I applied the alcohol! Now I know it was meant that I should apply the alcohol to the pests, directly, by using a cotton-swab or cue-tip, or other similar instrument. Some of my plants were very hardy, and even when watered by alcohol, they survived… not many, but enough to form a base for my current happy family of several hundred house plants.
by William Lewis, Illinois.
