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falcon
Full Member
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:04 pm
Location: Canada

fruit flies on Hibiscus

I was recently given a small, Hibiscus plant as a gift. I repotted it into a good size pot and put it in a location where it gets lots of sun. But when I repotted it, I had to break up the root ball and that really stressed the plant. Some leaves started turned yellow and died. This attracted fruit flies, and now even though the plant has recovered I can't get rid of them. I don't really know that much about Hibiscus plants, so does anybody know if I can spray them with a soap mix or are they to delicate for that?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I was really worried that I killed it the first time...I don't want to kill it again :wink:

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Kisal
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Posts: 7646
Joined: Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:04 am
Location: Oregon

While I have certainly had fruit flies in my house, I don't think I have ever had them go for a plant. (That doesn't mean they wouldn't, though! :shock: ) Are you sure what you have aren't fungus gnats? They're very common in houseplants, especially if the soil is quite damp and any kind of fungus begins to grow in it.

Fruit flies, while very tiny, usually appear brownish or yellowish. Fungus gnats, also very tiny, appear to be black or very dark gray.

The first step to controlling fungus gnats is to allow the soil of the plant to become somewhat dry between waterings. You can buy yellow sticky traps (these are just sticky, there is no insecticide in them) at plant nurseries and lay them horizontally on the soil to trap adults before they can lay more eggs. You can lay slices of raw potato on the surface of the soil overnight to attract the larvae. It doesn't do anything to control the larvae, but you can count them and determine how bad the infestation is.

If you enter fungus gnats in the search box at the upper left of the page, you will find many past discussions that offer good suggestions for controlling the little critters.

If you think you have fruit flies, just enter those words in the search box. One of the posts that I saw gives nicely clear instructions for building a trap for them, using white paper and a small jar of vinegar.



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