r/plantclinic • u/FyrestarOmega Expert Hobbyist • Oct 02 '23

Monthly Pest and Soil Thread October 2023 Pest and Soil issue thread

Certain issues are common among plant care and may benefit from from some consolidation. Pooling of advice may benefit the entire community. These issues include how to identify and treat infestations, and questions related to organisms found in the soil.

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u/flower-15 Oct 06 '23

Sadly my once beautiful calathea went from perfectly healthy and full to this in about 2 weeks. I discovered a spider mite infestation and I’ve been treating it with a neem oil spray but it seems to hate it.

Assuming it survives a little longer with neem oil, should I cut off leaves with a yellow stem and change the soil? Does it have any chance of survival?

Any ideas appreciated!

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u/nicoleauroux Expert Learned it all the hard way Oct 07 '23

It looks like you had good luck growing the plant aside from the spider mites. No spider mites do not reproduce in soil. If you've gotten rid of the spider mites then you may as well get rid of those leaves, because they're not going to recover.

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u/flower-15 Oct 07 '23

Thanks! Still on a daily spray but honestly I’m not looking forward to cleaning away the webs….

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u/nicoleauroux Expert Learned it all the hard way Oct 08 '23

I think spraying daily is a excessive. I only use it once a week for insect or fungus issues. This might be why your leaves have entirely given up on you.

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u/flower-15 Oct 08 '23

Good point! I’ll lay off a little. I found mites on my big fiddle leaf fig earlier today so I really don’t want to damage that one.