Need help with earwigs!

[momokev]

Hi guys, I really need some help! I brought one of my outdoor catts in to repot it yesterday. I pulled off the pot and started spraying water on the roots to get the old bark off. Several of these bugs started crawling around (scared me so bad I almost dropped my orchid!). I knocked them off and let them fight it out with the garbage disposal (I'm pretty sure the bugs lost). I sprayed the plant with Safer insect killer (it has earwigs listed as one of the bugs it kills).

First, since these things are hiding down in the bark, What is my best course of action? Should I un-pot all the orchids I have outside and treat them? Should I just attempt to soak the bark from the top? Should I buy enough of this stuff to fill a bucket and dunk the pots? I just don't want to do anything to hurt my orchids, nor do I want to bring these pests inside with my orchids this fall.

Thanks!

Lisa

[Gilda]

Lisa,
I hate those things! You can spray the bark...soaking the orchid real good before you bring it in the house...but what I do to kill them while they are outside, is to place some Ortho Bug Getta Plus underneath the pots....this is a granular product and I replace it when watering seems to have made it disappear....I used this last year and never found an earwig ,or centipede when I brought them back inside....I still give them a shot of safers' before bringing inside for the winter. Go getem' girl!

[Heather]

oooh!! Centipedes too?

y'all know how I simply *adore* centipedes!!!

[momokev]

Hey, Gilda

Can you buy that at Lowes? Can you put it on top of the bark? Some of mine are hanging in trees, so the bugs have to come from the top. I'd like to find a way to detour the nasty things.

[Gilda]

Lowes' or boxstore is where I got mine...can't rem. which one. I don't see why you couldn't put it on top.... it is for snails,etc.which have to come in contact with it..... that is why you put on the ground....maybe someone else has a better solution.

We had them living in our mailbox post and eating my clematis blooms. I sprinkled some in the groove of the inside of the back of the box and earwigs were laying dead everywhere the next day!!!

[LJA]

Lisa, before we bring anything back into the greenhouse that's been summering outside, we mix up a five gallon bucket of malathion and pour some through the pot a few times, holding the pot over the bucket. That'll terminate anything hidden and it hasn't hurt the orchids at all. If you do that and then water a few days later before bringing the plant indoors, the malathion odor will pretty much be gone by then.

[Forrest]

Lisa, before we bring anything back into the greenhouse that's been summering outside, we mix up a five gallon bucket of malathion and pour some through the pot a few times, holding the pot over the bucket. That'll terminate anything hidden and it hasn't hurt the orchids at all. If you do that and then water a few days later before bringing the plant indoors, the malathion odor will pretty much be gone by then.

Are you saying that you use the same solution and run it through all the plants? For example plant one gets the solution, runs into a bucket, then plant 2 gets it solution from that same bucket? Thats a tad risky.

edit: I would prod do it in one bucket as well, I would just think on a retail level that might be a risk that one might not want to assume. Just curious to hear your thoughts on it.

[LJA]

Forrest, the only plants that go outside are the huge ones from our personal collection: anything slated for sale stays in the greenhouse year around, mainly to keep them out of harm's way (squirrels, etc) and to maintain better environmental control. Those plants get run through with insecticide as well, but the solution is concentrated in the dosatron tank so that each plant gets fresh mix and the stuff is not reused.

Even so, if you're talking about risk due to virus transfer (is that what you mean??), while that's certainly "possible;" it's just as possible for virus to get sprayed off of the leaves of one plant and into the pot of the next one beside it when you water: overspray while watering is almost impossible to avoid when plants are grown together, and certainly, even when we spray the retail plants in the greenhouse with insecticide or fungicide or whatever, the solution from the leaves of one will drip onto the leaves of the next. So unless you're trying to grow under absolutely sterile and lab-like conditions, just putting the plants outside poses far more of a risk to their health due to insects and other pests than the nominal one taken by the reuse of solution. The risk of transfering virus from that is so low and highly unlikely that, in my opinion anyway, it's not worth the worry or the added expense.

Different growers have different growing "styles," I guess; mine's just more practical. We keep the place clean and sanitize bench and instuments when we repot or divide, but we don't use RO, for example, and I don't worry that the fans will rustle the leaves and make the edges of one cut into the edge of another, even though virus *has* been known to be transfered that way as well. If anyone's concerned about those things, by all means, mix up fresh solution for each plant, and make sure your plants don't drip on one another or touch in your growing area.

[Jmoney]

On the windowsill, I use the "communal bin" for watering my paphs. When the water starts to look dirty, I get a new bin of water and keep going. I am very unconcerned about viruses. If a plant has a virus to begin with, chances are you'll know about it, IMO. It may be a problem for spreading bugs, but then again, if plants are healthy...