Red spider mite damage

[Leafmite]

Years ago, I was very busy and did not really have much time with my collection. I was watering and noticed that my plants were in terrible condition. Whitefly, spidermites and something else. All I had was Malathion but I couldn't use that in the home. I grabbed a spray bottle of olive oil, doused all my plants with it and let them sit overnight. In the morning, I spent many hours cleaning off the oil with warm, soapy water. It was a pain to get the oil off of my plants but the result was better than I had hoped. The olive oil did a nice job of suffocating everything and my plants were pest free.

When treating for mites, remember that mites can quickly become resistant to chemical solutions. If you treat with a chemical, you need to treat all the plants and the growing area very thoroughly and, if the instructions say to repeat every week or three weeks for a time, that needs to be done.

You could try Neem Oil or Diatomaceous Earth if the chemicals do not work. Good luck!