Well, friends, its that time of year again and I know about moving the houseplants when the outside temps are similar to the indoor temps but last year I wound up with all these uninvited roly-polies! One plant is a Plectranthus in a ceramic pot, the other is a Spath- ummm, Peace Lily! I was going to spray with insecticidal soap but that won't really get anything that's residing in the soil, will it? Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
Barb :-)
Well, reading your signature line, I suggest you do what I do; deal with it! Don't spray anything anywhere, put the creatures you find outside as you catch them, and understand that they are lost travelers and don't want to be in your house any more than you want them there. Pill bugs (roly-polies) are crustations, related to lobsters and crabs, and only eat dead plant material so they aren't hurting your plants. I brought in all my plants that need to come in for the winter this weekend and told my family to expect an increase in spiders and everything else for the next 2 weeks or so. If your plants were happy outside, whatever came in with them wasn't hurting them; you just provided habitat and now are taking it away. Say Hi to the roly-polies as you "skid in broadside!"
what i do is slowly submerge the pots in a bucket of water (i do it very slowly, by adding the water to the bucket after i put the plant in) to drown the ants, and give everything else time to crawl to the top. that way i can pick and choose the critters to kill and the critters to save.