From my leaves to my tender new stems, I feel them—tiny, soft-bodied insects clustering and piercing my tissues to suck out my vital sap. They are aphids, and a heavy infestation leaves me weak, stunted, and with curled, yellowing leaves. The sticky "honeydew" they excrete is more than just a nuisance; it attracts sooty mold, which blocks the sunlight my leaves need to photosynthesize. To help me, you can blast these pests off with a strong jet of water. For more stubborn colonies, insecticidal soap or neem oil, applied thoroughly to my upper and lower leaf surfaces, will suffocate them without harming my essential oils.
When the air is hot and dry, I become a prime target for spider mites. These are not insects but tiny arachnids, almost impossible to see until their damage is done. I first signal their presence with a subtle stippling of yellow dots on my leaves as they feed cell by cell. If you notice fine, silky webbing, especially between my stems and under my leaves, the infestation is severe. They drain my life force, causing my beautiful gray-green leaves to turn bronze, dry up, and drop. Increasing humidity around me can deter them. Please rinse my foliage regularly and treat me with miticides or horticultural oil, ensuring you cover every crevice where they hide.
If you brush against me and a small cloud of tiny, white, moth-like insects flutter up, you have discovered whiteflies. Both the adults and their scale-like nymphs attach themselves to the undersides of my leaves and suck my sap, weakening me significantly and causing leaf yellowing and drop. Like aphids, they excrete honeydew, leading to sooty mold. Yellow sticky traps can help monitor and reduce the adult population. For the immobile nymphs, you must use insecticidal soap or neem oil, applied consistently every few days to break their reproductive cycle.
While the adult gnats buzzing around my soil are merely annoying, their larvae are the real problem for me. These tiny white worms live in the top layer of soil and feed on my delicate root hairs and organic matter. This root damage hinders my ability to uptake water and nutrients, leading to poor growth and wilting. The key to controlling them is to let my soil dry out more between waterings, as they thrive in consistently moist conditions. You can use yellow sticky traps for the adults and apply a biological control like beneficial nematodes to the soil to seek out and destroy the larvae.
I dread the appearance of these small, white, cottony masses in the joints of my stems and on the undersides of my leaves. Mealybugs are slow-moving but relentless, inserting their piercing mouthparts to feed on my sap. Their feeding causes leaf yellowing and defoliation, and they also produce honeydew. They are particularly stubborn because their waxy coating protects them. The most effective method is to dab each insect with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol, which dissolves their protective layer. For larger infestations, follow up with sprays of insecticidal soap or neem oil.
