Some insects thrive on our indoor plants rather than the outdoor ones because the central heating, the micro-climate and the lack of predators makes it an idyllic setting for them. When you become conscious of an infestation of these insects, you ought to take immediate action to get rid of them, before they spread to the rest of your indoor plants.

These indoor insects can breed and spread incredibly fast in the ideal conditions of your living room. One of the most common groups of indoor insect pests are the spider mites. Spider mites come in a variety of colours, depending where you live, but the most common colours are red, green and yellow.

Spider mites are very small and so not easy to see, but they can instigate the leaves to drop off your plants, which will quickly kill it. If you think that you have a problem with these spider mites, you should hold a piece of dark card under a leaf and then tap the leaf. If you have mites, some will fall onto the card.

These pests belong to the family of spiders and ticks and can be killed fairly easily with an suitable spray. Ask in your gardening centre for either a systemic insect killer or a natural method, if you would rather. The only stipulation is that you will have to act quickly, if you have them.

Shell insects are very small, but, under magnification, look like blobs of wax on the plant's stem. They are sucking the life out of you plants and they breed very quickly too, if they are left to go unchecked. These insects will not kill your plants quickly because they are after a protracted source of food, but as their numbers increase, they will ultimately kill their host. Insecticide is the only known cure for shell insects.

Mealy bugs are a lot bigger and are easily visible to the naked eye, but they do not necessarily look like animals. Instead, they look like strands of cotton in a bunch on your plant. There are two methods of dealing with mealy bugs, you can either wash them off first with water and then spray to avert a further infestation or just spray and eradicate them with the spray.

It can take a few weeks to get rid of any of these indoor insects, because they could be anywhere and there will be eggs waiting to hatch out - possibly in the pot plant's soil. Anyway, once you know that you have a problem, just stay with it until your plant recovers.

One of the first signs that you will get that you have an infestation of something is that your plant will start to look poorly and when it has recovered, you can be pretty sure that the insects have been killed too.

One thing to note here is that these pests normally only get a toehold with plants that are out of condition anyway. This frequently comes to mean that they are getting too much water, although there can be other causes also.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is currently concerned with indoor mosquito repellent. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Repellent For Dogs.

Posted under indoor gardening