Beginner Gardening: Curious about cedar , 0 by tapla

tapla wrote:
The best cure is prevention, which actually hinges on two things, those being how light/heavy the hand on the watering can, and how well-aerated your soil is. Well-aerated soils make very hospitable homes for roots, and healthy roots are essential if a healthy plant is your goal, so much so that a healthy plant is impossible w/o a healthy root system. Adopting a free-draining, well-aerated soil and getting your watering on track should not only unburden you of the gnat issue, it will also provide your plants a much greater opportunity for them to grow much closer to their genetic potential (growth/vitality) than they might have in heavier, water-retentive soils.

The sticky at the top of this forum goes into a fair amount of discussion about soils (for your houseplants) and how to make or improve them - if you'd care to read it. If you find that info to be of value and want to read more, I can link you to a thread that explains in detail a concept that probably represents the largest forward step anyone growing in containers can take at any one time. Growing in containers is much easier than we sometimes make it, this, for wont of knowledge of how to cover the basics. For instance, I'm not being critical of advice already given because it can be helpful to a degree, but potato slices and covering the top of the soil with sand only treat the symptoms, leaving the underlying cause, the underlying cause being a combination of soil choice and watering habits that often finds the gnats cruising each other's homes in a cloud of orgiastic frenzy. Fixing the soil can actually take care of that over-watering issue by default, and eliminate the attractiveness of your chosen medium to gnats at the same time. Best luck, let me know if you'd like to learn more .......

Al

See what I grow houseplants in below: