I considered telling you that indoor conditions are very bad for
spiders; there's very little food for them. I considered suggesting
that in spring, you catch each one and let it go outside.

But I decided against it.

While spiders are harmless, other arthropods may be building up
numbers on indoor bonsai this time of year. Everybody should take a
few minutes to look for scale insects. They can kill a plant very
rapidly- the symptoms are defoliation and branch die-back. Infected
plants may be sticky to the touch, because the scale insects exude
some of the sap they have ingested. The mature scale insect looks
like a wart or bump on the branch. They can be controlled to some
degree with insecticides, but their "armor" is fairly impermeable.
Horticultural oils will smother them, but coverage needs to be good,
and there's a danger of phytotoxicity. The easiest thing to do is to
dip a piece of paper towel in alcohol and rub off the scales. They
can't move- they're goners. A few weeks later, you can come in with
a pyrethrin or soap insecticide to kill the next generation of
"crawlers"; the tiny mobile juveniles.
--
Nina Shishkoff

Riverhead, NY

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