Treating houseplants before bring them indoors - Page 2

 last year while visiting my brother our visit kept being
interrupted by wasp flying around inside his house.  we'd
kill one and almost get back to enjoying our visit when
another wasp would start buzzing around in the room.  after
killing about five of them we decided we'd look for the source.  
turned out to be one of the hanging baskets he'd brought in
from the front porch that morning had a wasp nest in it.  and
yep that basket went back outside.

 On 10/15/2007 1:00 PM, Phisherman wrote:

Except for a cymbidium orchid, I leave them outside all winter.

I bring the orchid inside around Thanksgiving, to protect it from frost.
 I give it no special outdoor versus indoor treatment.  Indoors, I keep
it in the dining room with the drapes open in the daytime (northern
window) to give it enough light.

We had record breaking cold in January the beginning of this year.  All
my potted plants outside survived the Great Freeze of '07, although some
had damage that required pruning later in the year.  I replaced the
potted Ficus benjamina because it would take too long for new growth to
compensate for the damage.  In the ground, I lost all my statice (sea
lavender, Limonium perezii) and one (of 20) wax-leaf begonia.  All the
dwarf citrus survived; my dear, old dwarf lemon was already dead or
dying before the freeze.  Everything else recovered, only for much of it
to be destroyed this summer by the construction equipment needed to
repair my hill from a mud slide that happened in January 2005.

--
David E. Ross
Climate:  California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at <http://www.rossde.com/garden/>

 I have a problem with fungus gnats. So I buy some mosquito dunks and throw
one in the watering can and let sit over night. Water completely the next
day. Start this about 2 weeks before you bring yjr plants indoors. It takes
awhile to kill the gnats. or you can spend big bucks for "Gnatroll" which
does the same thing.

 

Sprinkle the soil with ground cinnamon. I bought a big jar of ground
cinnamon at the Dollar Store for my garden bucket and I've had it it for
years, still works just fine.  The gnats disappear within minutes and it
kills the larva as well. No nasty chemicals, non toxic and it smells good
too. I've very seldom ever had to treat a pot more than once.

Val

 

I've also had good results using cinnamon to prevent damping off in
flats of seedlings.  I sprinkle it over the flats after seeding.

Charlie