Do You Wanna See Some Icky Mealybug Closeups?
We have an accidental aloe vera grow operation in our family room.
We did not count them. I do not know how many plants there were. There was about 10-12 containers full.
The aloe grow-op has a REALLY BAD infestation of mealybugs.
It was high time to deal with it.
We hauled every single plant down to the garage in a garbage bag so that they wouldn’t spread to other plants as we walked by with them.
Then we went through the pots and pulled out and pieces that looked healthy enough to be salvageable. We threw everything else out, including the dirt.
After moving all the plants, I had mealy bugs all over my clothes, so I changed and put my clothes straight in the washer and washed my hands well before touching anything else. Then we passed and bleached all the pots, the tools we used, the table, and the garbage bin. We dried all the pots, and they will be set outside in the cold for a few days as well.
Washing all the planters with soap and bleach.
The three garbages bags full of infested plants that weren’t worth saving got tied up and set outside. It was -10ºC, so fingers crossed everything was killed quickly.
The plants we salvaged then went into a bath of soapy water. Mum swished them around good and ran her fingers down each leaf while they were in the water. Then we rinsed them and set them in a clean bin.
We bleached everything again, and mum washed the floor around where the plants had been; luckily, they weren’t close to other plants, and all the plant stands they were on will be washed and set out in the cold as well.
Why are we dealing with mealybugs this way?
Well, based on our experience with the mealybugs on our Jade last winter, they’re nigh on impossible to get rid of.
In the past, we’ve had aloe vera root from sitting just barely in water before, so we’ll be putting the saved plants in jars of water, away from other plants, and keeping a close eye on them. We’ll check them every couple of days to see if there are any signs of more mealybugs and treat with soapy water again as needed.
Keeping the aloe in water, instead of soil, allows us to quickly identify if there are still more bugs and discard plants if needed, without worrying about potting each plant or throwing out the soil. We’ll wait until we’re sure they’re healthy, and then we’ll pot them into soi.
Additionally, some of them will probably not handle all this stress very well. So it’s easier to set them in water, discard any that don’t root or get more bugs, and only pot up the ones that we can keep healthy.
Why did our aloe vera get mealy bugs?
The simple answer: water stress.
They’ve only been watered once in the past month, and then they only got a tiny bit. Many of them were extremely root/pot bound. And the furnace started up about a month ago, so everything is drying out super fast now. They were already dehydrated, and then we added more stress with super dry air.
Plants running out of space, competing for soil and nutrients, and no water are even more stressed. Stress weakens them, and they become more susceptible to pest infestations.
Where do mealybugs come from?
That is a question I don’t have a good answer for. The typical answer is that bugs come in from new plants, or in new soil, or come inside on plants you bring inside for winter. But, these aloes haven’t had new soil in a couple of years, no new plants have been added to that room, and none of the plants we brought inside for winter have shown any mealy bugs.
My hunch is that they’re always around, and when plants get weak, they just start to reproduce exponentially. I hope that someday I have a more detailed answer to this question.
At any rate, I’m sure I’ll be writing about this mealybug infestation again in a few weeks to let you know how things are going with our poor aloe vera.