I’ve been successfully taking care of plants for nearly 5 years, and these are the 9 items I have found the most helpful when fighting plant pests.
I’ve tried out a lot of different ways to fight pests, and these are my favourite items.
The best way to fight pests is prevention. This can be done by regularly spraying your plant with a homemade insecticide, wiping leaves, ensuring proper watering, and isolating any new plants you bring into your house until you are sure they don’t have pests.
If you do have pests, make sure you isolate the plant away from your other plants.
For specific pests, check out my individual plant pest guides.
1. Insecticide (Homemade or Pre-Made)
Homemade Insecticide for Plant Pests
I use this on a very regular basis. A lot of pests are hard to see with the naked eye until they are a problem, so I will use my homemade insecticide on my plants while wiping my plants leaves.
I either spray the plant itself or spray a bit on my microfibre plant dusting gloves so it is damp, and wipe the leaves.
If I have pests, I also use the homemade insecticide to eradicate them. The recipe I use is 1 spray bottle, 1 tbsp dish soap (not dish detergent), filtered water, 1 tsp neem oil). I prefer using a homemade insecticide because I can be a bit sensitive to chemicals, and certain pests can build up a tolerance to manufactured insecticide.
Manufactured Insecticide for Plant Pests
If you don’t want to make your own insecticide, Safer’s insecticide is a good option. Make sure you follow the directions on the bottle.
2. Microfibre Plant Dusting Gloves
If you are fighting pests on only one plant, you can spray insecticide onto the plant dusting gloves, and wipe the leaves this way.
If you are dealing with multiple plants, I would use paper towel instead of the gloves to avoid accidentally spreading pests to another plant.
For prevention, you should wipe the leaves of your plants with plant dusting gloves, or damp paper towel on a weekly basis.
3. Yellow Sticky Traps
Yellow sticky traps are great for a variety of pests like fungus gnats, thrips, and more.
I heard they could help with a certain stage of thrips, and I was hoping to break the cycle. I was shocked at how well these work when I saw a lot of little ones on one of the traps on my plant.
4. Dryer Sheets
When I was looking how to get rid of fungus gnats, one of the ways that was suggested online was dryer sheets. Fungus gnats are attracted to moist environments. If you put your dryer sheets on top of the upper layer of the plant’s soil of the impacted plant, the gnats won’t be drawn to that plant.
I found combining the dryer sheets and the homemade insecticide, very effective in getting rid of fungus gnats quickly.
5. Lint Roller
I learned about this on TikiTok. If you think your plant has thrips, and it has thicker foliage (and isn’t a new leaf), you can try and lint roll the leaf.
TikTok said this would potentially remove any thrips or eggs that you can’t see. I’m on the fence with this method since thrips lay their eggs in the tissue of the plant. I believe you can pick up the ones on the surface, but that’s it. I have done this method before, and damaged the foliage on a newer leaf. When I tried this method, I followed it with the steps in my method above.
However, for velvety plants with thick leaves, I find this the best way to clean the foliage. Just do it sparingly, and NOT on new leaves.
6. Pruning Shears
For my larger plants, I use pruning shears to cut off any leaves infected by pests, but for my smaller plants, I just use some clean kitchen scissors as the shears are too big. For thick stems, you definitely want a pair of shears.
7. Kitchen Scissors
Like I mentioned above, for my smaller plants, I use some clean kitchen scissors as the shears are too big. I use the scissors that came with my knife block.
8. Cotton Swabs
Thankfully I have not experienced mealy bugs or scale, but typically you would get rid of them using a q-tip or cotton swab with a bit of Isopropyl alcohol.
9. Isopropyl Alcohol
Like I mentioned above, if you have mealy bugs or scale you would use Isopropyl Alcohol and a cotton swab to remove them.
Sometimes when an infestation is bad, you will have to repot your plant since some pests lay eggs in the soil, and you’ll need to break the reproduction cycle. Check out this guide for everything you need to know for repotting.
Hope this guide helps you with everything you need for pest management, and prevention. I have other guides on specific tips such as: individual pest guides, essential items for day-to-day plant care, plant growth (potting/repotting, support), vacation plant care prep (setting up automated systems), individual plant care guides, and my favourite planty books!
