emma96•12d ago

Warning: That 'pest free' plant from the big box store nearly killed my whole collection

Picked up a beautiful peace lily from Home Depot in Tampa last Tuesday. Three days later I found spider mites crawling on it and they had spread to my monstera and two ferns. Cost me $45 in neem oil and insecticidal soap to treat everything plus 4 hours of wiping leaves. Anyone else learned the hard way to quarantine new plants before bringing them near your good ones?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_brian12d ago

Yeah I learned that one the hard way too. Brought home a supposed clean fern from Lowe's and two weeks later my whole shelf had scale bugs. Now everything new goes straight to the bathroom for at least 2 weeks before it gets anywhere near my good plants. I also spray every new plant down with a mix of water and a few drops of dish soap the minute I bring it in, then wipe every single leaf front and back. It sounds overkill but trust me, spending 15 minutes on a new plant beats spending 4 hours treating an infestation. The big box stores just don't keep their plants clean enough to risk it.

smith.elliot11d ago

Whoa, hold on, is it really that bad though? I gotta say I've been buying plants from Lowe's and Home Depot for years and never had a single bug problem. Maybe I'm just lucky or something but I feel like people online always make it sound like every single big box store plant is crawling with stuff. I just give mine a quick look over, make sure the soil isn't soaking wet, and put it right where it's going. Never done the quarantine thing or the soap spray. And honestly if I had to keep a new plant in the bathroom for two weeks I'd probably forget about it and it'd die from lack of light anyway. I feel like if you're getting your plants from a spot that's really gross or has visible bugs on the shelves then yeah I get it. But most of the time I think it's just a little over the top for a normal hobby.

val_shah6d ago

Right there with you. Learned that lesson with a big box fern once. Never again.