How to get rid of mealybugs from your plants

Get rid of mealybugs.

Getting rid of mealy bugs from your plants begins with spotting them before they spread to other plants in your home or garden. Mealy bugs are sometimes difficult to spot on larger plants but you want to look for small oval-shaped bugs that look like they have a flour like powder on them. If you only find one or two mealy bugs, you'll want to check further to make sure that is all of them. If you find a good number of mealy bugs on one plant you may have to dispose of the plant entirely.

As soon as you discover any mealy bugs on your plant, you'll need to isolate that plant from the rest of your plants. If they are in your home, simply move the infested plant away from the other plants. If the plant is in your garden, you can remove the leaves that have become infested, but again you may have to remove and throw away an infested plant. If you leave a plant infested with mealy bugs near healthy plants, the mealy bugs will spread and destroy far more plants.

Many over the counter products don't work well on mealy bugs so you'll have to try various methods to remove the mealy bugs. A lot of people simply use squirt bottles or hoses to spray a hard stream of water directly at each mealy bug. This sometimes dislodges the mealy bug and can temporarily fix the problem. You can also use soapy water that makes it more difficult for the mealy bug to get back on the leaves of the plant.

You can also use rubbing alcohol to kill the mealy bugs by dabbing a little bit of rubbing alcohol on each bug. This takes away their waxy protective coating and kills them off. Another way to kill off mealy bugs is to get a light oil and dab it on the mealy bugs.
Whichever method you choose, you'll often need to repeat the process in 7-10 days as the mealy bugs may have laid eggs on, in, and around the plant. If you act quickly, you can sometimes find only a few leaves of the plant infested and remove those leaves. Otherwise the above methods should help remove the mealy bugs from your plant.

Again keep in mind that if mealy bugs have eggs that go undetected, then the infestation can reappear and make it a lot more likely that the infestation will spread the nearby plants. It is important to follow up and keep an eye on plants that had any mealy bugs on them to make sure all crawlers and eggs are gone as well.

Try these easy and cost effective ways to get rid of mealybugs and you'll have a great garden.