House plants

[ThatLilacPoet]

How do I stop little fruit flies invading my houseplants? Is it the compost I use? I’ve tried a couple of different ones. But still persist. So annoying

Water from the bottom. Apparently there’s some worms you can buy to eat the flies

Yuck

Fungus gnats. I use the sticky traps, have got one in each plant.

If you let plants dry out completely between watering, it stops their life cycle and they all die off.

Yes sticky traps.

Gravel on top of pots so female doesn’t recognise it as moist humus-rich soil in which lay her eggs.

if you have a lot of gnats, they are hatching out from larvae in the soil, so I would repot them all in new soil, making sure you don’t carry over any transparent 1cm worms with the roots.

I have this too, it's so annoying. Not sure I can be bothered to repot as I have so many. Is that the only effective way to get rid?

I have successfully got rid of mine by letting the soil dry out between watering

I've repotted but it makes no difference, the only effective way is the traps on my plants and letting the plants completely dry out between watering. I've got lots of succulents and I swear they come in the new soil mix.

They lay their eggs in lovely warm moist compost on the top of pots. I put a thin layer of horticultural grit on the top of my houseplants + water from bottom, don't overwater etc which breaks the lifecycle.

Nematodes and sticky traps work to get rid of the current crop but in my experience are a temporary solution.

I seem to have got rid of mine by fly spraying them. I'm going to cover the earth around my plant with gravel as well to deter them.

They aren't fruit flies but fungus gnats.

I brought them home in a plant from Homebase. The soil of over 60 plants became infected.

I've done all of the above.

Thankfully I've not seen one for quite some time now. It took years.

Nematodes will sort them out. They are like a little powder you add to your watering can then water into the soil, and they eat the eggs of the fungus gnats. Magic!

Mine have also got better since only watering from the bottom

No, it allows you to assess damage. The grubs in your soil will carry on chomping at roots until they metamorphose into flies. If you’re noticing flies, a lot will have emerged already. Your job is then to stop any of those flies laying more eggs in the soil. So household fly spray to kill as many as possible, and gravel to deter the rest.

Got rid of them last year with sticky traps ans nematodes, both off Amazon.

Wont have any this year as I seem to have killed 90% of my plants. The two things are unrelated though 😂

Put a clove of garlic on the top of the soil

We've added some carnivorous plants to our collection and they get rid of them.