Small black flies

[AdoraBell]

As above, very small black flies, not standard flies. These are from the pot with a money plant.

Anyone know what they are and how to deal with them without killing the plants please?

I think they are gnats that live in soil. I get them around some of my house plants and buy small sticky fruit fly traps from ebay which control them somewhat.

Thank you, I’ll look for the traps.

They're likely to be fungus gnats aka sciarid flies. They lay their eggs in the soil and the larvae feed on fungus in the growth medium.

They can be deterred by letting the top cm or so of the soil dry out between watering and watering from the base. Putting a layer of decorative gravel on the soil surface (it'll discourage egg laying and make it harder for adult flies to emerge).

I put a mixture of water and vinegar with a drop of washing up liquid in a small pot among my plants which attracted and drowned the flies.

Currently I've got a spider on a retainer, she lives over the plants and eats the flies for me.

I believe you can get another biological control, a nematode that you water into the soil, but I've not used this.

I agree, they are most probably fungus gnats, and see the washing-up liquid trick mentioned above. You need to watch out with adding vinegar though, as some plants aren't keen on acidic soil.

I've got hundreds of the buggers in the house right now and resident spider is fed up and fancying a change so just ignores them.

Thanks again, I’ve sprayed the soil with a washing up solution, plus all the flies that fled. I’ll buy some of the stones but I’m skint now so I’ll get them next week.

Apologies, if I was a little unclear with my earlier post. I put the vinegar mix in a small bowl (a ramekin) among my plants. I didn't actually pour it onto them.

You can buy decorative gravel specifically for plants, but check if aquarium gravel is cheaper. It does the same job and the plants don't care.