Beginner Gardening: Help! Infestation!, 1 by tinabean17

tinabean17 wrote:
Hello,

I am in desperate need of help!I am having such a hard time identifying these little white bugs. I have been googling for over an hour and cannot find anything that looks similar. They are small white bugs that look almost like a white dusting, however I'm positive that they are not scale, as they look almost like small spiders, and they're only on the tops of the leaves, not really the bottoms at all. I am suspecting spider mites, but I want to be positive before I treat the plant as it's so sensitive, I don't want to kill it or make it drop all it's leaves.

I also discovered centipedes in the soil, and I'm pretty mad because I used miracle grow container soil, which I thought was sterilized, but I suppose it could have come from the plant's original dirt. I've heard that to get rid of them I have to completely replace the soil, removing all of it from the roots and replanting. Is this true?

I've included pictures, could you please let me know what you think they are, and how to get rid of them?

It's so horrible and I love my ficus to pieces... It's about 5.5 feet tall with a braided trunk, and I'd hate to lose it.

Thank you!

-Tina