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An effective spider mite treatement.

For all those of you who, like me, had had to deal with red spider mites
in the past, here is a good way to deal with them. I had five plants who
recently got spider mite from impatients who were kept to dry. I had
tried different brands of insecticides, all of which were supposed to
give great results, but who all failed to do the job. Here is what a
florist of mine told me to do and amasingly it worked like a charm. Of
course, this method is useful for small plants who don't have too many
leaves and you will soon understand why. Big plants or plants with many
leaves can be treated with this method also, but doing it outside would
be best (or in the bathtub).
TREATMENT:  take your plant out of it's pot and wash the root ball to
get most of the earth out of there. Then wash the plant itself under
running water to get rid of all those webs and a good deal of red spider
mites to. Then cover both your hands with dishsoap and rub your hands
gently on the top and the bottom of every leaf. Cover the entire leaf
area with soap and part of the stems also. leave plant a few minutes
with the soap. Meanwhile, wash your pot carefully making sure no traces
of dirt remain.(if it's a clay pot, it would be better to let it soak in
water 24 hours before re-using but this is not neccesary) Don't leave
the soap on the plant too long, it's the mites we want to kill, not the
plant. Then carefully wash the soap off every leaf. (it usually makes a
squeeky sound when the soap is all off...LOL!) Repot the plant in new
soil and keep away from your houseplant collection. Observe your plant
during the next week following the first treatment, if all seems fine,
you can replace it in it's spot. If not, redo treatment. (I highly
recomend the treatment be done twice, just to be on the safe side) You
can repeat the treatment up to four times with a one week interval.
Usually once is OK. Another good thing about this treatment is that the
leaves get a real good wash! The plant doesn't get harmed from this, on
the contrairy, it looks even better after the treatment! My plants were
badly affected. Lots of leaves lost and lots of webs. I saved all of
them except for the impatients, they weren't worth keeping. I even did
this treatment to a hedera vine. It was long but worth while. It doesn't
get a bath very often.
*NOTE: -be careful not to do the treatment on plants whose leaves would
get destroyed by water (examples are saintpaulia
               and gynura)
              -also be careful not to damage the fragil leaves of some
types during the treatment
I invite you to take down this info because red spider mites spread
quickly from one plant to another and if you happen to have as many
plants as I do the problem can become enormous in a matter of days.
These things multiply like crazy and they can make a plant deterioate
quite fast!
Helga
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