Quote:
Originally Posted by darronb
Since are central heating came on we have been infested with extremely small black flies. I had noticed them coming out of a cactus plants soil, and as much as I didn't want to was forced to move the plant outside. Now we have flies coming out of other plant pots inside the house.
My question is what are they exactly and what can I do to get rid of them. Hopefully without losing my plants.
To the forum admins, I am sorry if this is posted in the wrong section as I couldn't find an indoor plant section to the forum.
Any help with my problem will be greatly appreciated thank you.
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As others have said, sciarid flies. Keep the top of the compost bone dry to deter them.
But since you have cacti, what you need to do is decant the cactus plant and check the roots for small white grubs - the larvae of the fly are capable of munching through all the roots of anything which has soft fleshy roots - hippeastrums and other bulbs, cacti etc. Then repot the cactus in new, rather gritty compost, and cover the top with a layer of grit.
It's also worth killing any flies you see, before they can go and lay more eggs. You often find them crawling over the outside of the pots. And domestic fly killer works on the flies, although not on the grubs.
By the way, no need to apologise to forum admins - all this forum does is repost your post to one of the gardening newsgroups, in this case uk.rec.gardening. It's the folks on uk.rec.gardening who are answering your question, nowt to do with gardenbanter.
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