20160407A.jpgFor a quick, easy and – quite honestly! – fun way of controlling the dreaded whitefly, a major pest of houseplants and seedlings at this time of year, paint the tip of a hand-held vacuum yellow, turn it on, and run it over and around the infested plants. The vacuum’s noise and vibrations cause a panic among the whiteflies and they’ll take to the air, forming a cloud of what appear to be little bits of flying dandruff. It so happens that whiteflies, like many insects, are particularly fond of the color yellow, which, to their eyes, is the shade of a sickly and therefore desirable plant. So after a few seconds of flight, they’ll seek out the comforting refuge of yellowing plant on which to alight… and will instead find themselves pulled into the mouth of the vacuum.

You’ll have to repeat this technique every 4 or 5 days for 2 or 3 weeks, because it only picks up the adults, not the immobile larvae. You’ll want to get the young as they hatch.

There is something very satisfying about sucking up your enemies with a hand vac. It’s too bad it doesn’t work on mealybugs! (Hint: the latter don’t fly!)

2 comments on “Suck Up Your Enemies!

  1. bwahahahah

  2. Reminds me how I feel when I pass the tomato hornworms on to the chicken to devour. 🙂

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