How to Kill Mosquitoes on Indoor Plants
When the blood-sucking mosquito that’s been eluding you for hours finally lands on your potted indoor plant, you stop dead in your pursuit, checking your swatter swing in midair. It occurs to you that giving that pesky bug a good solid whack will likely cause grievous injury to your precious indoor plant. As awful as they are, mosquitoes are pretty delicate when it comes to killing them. You can outmaneuver and squash them easily, or use any commercially produced insecticide to achieve mosquito mortality. It’s a little dicier when it comes to applying chemicals to your indoor plants, however. Chemicals that kill mosquitoes might well do the same to your potted beauties. Some insecticidal products work well and are safe for use around the other living beings in your household.
Turn the light off in the room if there are multiple mosquitoes buzzing around. They’ll soon light and settle on furniture, walls and ceilings as well as on your plants. Turn the light back on and quickly suck up as many of the little buggers as you can with your vacuum cleaner. Don’t try to vacuum bugs off of your plants -- you can easily suck parts of them into the machine, too.
Spray mosquitoes on indoor plants with insecticidal soap. It’s a contact killer, so you have to squirt it directly onto the little creatures. Insecticidal soaps may be the perfect bug killers. These products are harmless to most of your indoor plants, but they’re deadly to bugs. Follow the packaging instructions carefully.
Repeat treatments of insecticidal soap whenever you see a new mosquito arrive. Since these materials are contact killers, they have no residual action. That means that even if the bug walks through a recent application, it won’t be harmed.
Spray mosquitoes on indoor plants with pyrethrin aerosol or spray labeled for indoor flying insects. Pyrethrins are made from chrysanthemum flower seed cases and are safe for your plants. These materials do have residual effects. Follow the manufacturer’s recommendations carefully.
Warning
Don’t use insecticidal soaps on bleeding heart, crown of thorns, gardenia, jade or lantana plants. Some varieties of azalea, begonia, impatien, fern, poinsettia and palm, and some succulents are sensitive to these products and may suffer damage from them.
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Writer Bio
A full-time writer since 2007, Axl J. Amistaadt is a DMS 2013 Outstanding Contributor Award recipient. He publishes online articles with major focus on pets, wildlife, gardening and fitness. He also covers parenting, juvenile science experiments, cooking and alternative/home remedies. Amistaadt has written book reviews for Work At Home Truth.
