What to Do About Small Bugs in Phalaenopsis Orchids? Pest Pictures and Control Methods
Walking into a flower shop, most shopkeepers will recommend Phalaenopsis orchids to you, because they look beautiful and easily give people a sense of closeness. However, when introducing them, many shopkeepers will only briefly mention their care points, and few teach you how to prevent pests and how to drive away unknown small insects.
Generally speaking, the pests most likely to breed on Phalaenopsis orchids include aphids, small flying insects, red spider mites, and so on, but snails and slugs cannot be ruled out either. Today let's talk about the damage caused by snails and slugs. First, their damage: these two pests are rather lazy, hiding at the bottom of the flowerpot and in the gaps of the potting medium during the day, and once night falls they crawl out and target the tenderest parts of the Phalaenopsis orchid (such as tender leaves, flower buds and petals). After tender leaves are gnawed, they become pitted and uneven, and they especially love to gnaw tender shoots. If there are flower buds, the petals are also gnawed to shreds, and they may even drag bitten flower buds back into the potting medium to feed on them, which further speeds up root rot, because wherever they crawl they leave shiny trails of mucus, which stick to the leaves after drying and are both hard to wipe off and unsightly.
How to prevent them? The first trick is the "physical isolation method": place the Phalaenopsis orchid pot on a raised stand (it can also be on a flower rack, a table, or on bricks or wooden boards), keeping the bottom of the pot at least 10 cm off the ground. In addition, spread a ring of quicklime around the flower rack and flowerpot. Quicklime absorbs moisture and also irritates their bodies, acting like a "barrier zone" that keeps them from daring to crawl forward.
The second trick is to go catch the "monsters" at night. Usually after 8 p.m. every day, take a flashlight and shine it around each flowerpot one by one, focusing on the pot edges, the backs of leaves, and the surface of the potting medium. As soon as you see one, pick it up with tweezers and throw it away, or, if you are a bit more extreme, put it into a small box with salt (to dehydrate and kill them). At first, don't feel it's too troublesome, but persist for a few days and there will be fewer and fewer.
The third trick is to directly use pesticide: metaldehyde granules. Grab a small handful of granules and scatter them on the potting medium surface of the flowerpot, without burying them too deep. When they look for food, they will eat the granules they touch, and the next morning you can see the dead pests, with a particularly obvious effect.