House Plants, fun summer outdoors, time to come back in....

Hi Folks,
My question today is one that I am sure has been asked before but I cannot find any answers. During the summer all my house plants love to vacation outdoors on the deck, stepping stones and some even under the trees. But as with any plants that have been outdoors the local population of insects see them as new homes.

What can I do in the fall to my houseplants to prepare them to come back inside and rid them of any insects that they may be bringing back inside with them?

I spray AND water mine with insecticidal soap before they come back from vacation.

I agree with smileymom. Also give the foilage and soil a good looking over for any buggers after the spraying of the soap.
Christine

Will the insecticidal Soap work on ants too? I have a few potted plants outside that are full of ants, one is a morning glory Bush, the ants love hanging out at the blooms.. Every time I water her, ants come out from the bottom of the pot and from the top of the potting mix....

Amalie

can't hurt to try. I'm not sure if it would work, though. does it have aphids? ants herd aphids.

I usually try to evict ants as soon as I see they have moved into a pot. I'll water heavily over and over till they grab their eggs and leave, there have been times when I had to immerse the entire pot into a bucket of water, but i always put a stick or some sort of get away ladder in there so that the ants can climb out.

As for bringing plants in, I wash each one well with a hose sprayer, get under the leaves and in every nook and cranny. After the plant dries, I give it a good spraying with insecticidal soap. If you think there might be bugs, it is good to start this process early, a few weeks before you bring the plant in, so that you can do two insecticidal treatments before bringing the plant inside.

Most of my plants stay outside year round but there are some more tender ones that have to come inside if we have cold nights or the occasional freeze during Jan/Feb.

I do the same as jmp24, I use a strong spray from the garden hose, making sure to get underneath all of the leaves to flush away any little "buggers" that may be hiding there. I use insecticidal soap as well, it kills lots of different bugs.

Don't get me started about ants! Grrr ... we have so many ants in our yard this year and can't seem to get rid of them! A few days ago I was on the pool deck (which is screened in, but the cement pool deck is attached to a raised wood deck also) ... I noticed thousands, yes really ... thousands of teeny little ants running along the edge of the wood deck and the cement deck! We have lots of little anole lizards around that usually eat ants but for some reason they weren't going after these ants! I even caught a skinny little lizard that looked as if he needed a good meal and put him over by the ants, but he ran in the opposite direction to one of my containers and climbed up to the plant. I thought lizards ate all kinds of ants but maybe the sheer number frightened the little guy, LOL.

Many years ago when one of my nieces was about six years old, she was swimming in the pool while I walked around with the garden hose watering my plants. I turned the hose on a large container plant and within a couple of minutes very large carpenter type ants came pouring out of the pot from both the top of the soil and the bottom drainage holes! A couple of lizards came running and sucked up those ants so fast! I had never seen anything like it! I like having those lizards around, knowing they eat the bugs ... just wish I could figure out why they didn't eat the little ants a few days ago. I ended up turning the hose on turbo speed and I think I killed them all. Anyway, I'm hoping they are gone ... I don't want them taking up residence in my plants that are out there, but I have a feeling there might be a few nests in some of the containers. I keep insecticidal soap around and will use it if I find anymore.

No my plant have no aphids or any other nasty bugs, just the ants. I water them everyday until I flood it but the ants come back, gggggrrrrrrrr Ants!!!

Oh, Lin, I hate those carpenter ants....they are so big and they run so fast. I had an apartment once in an old house and they were living somwhere in the kitchen wall behind the sink, it was awful, and my cheap-o landlord wouldn't call an exterminator, he kept using these expired chemicals, god knows where they came from, and nothing worked. Unfortunately he was also a friend of mine and the rent was really cheap, so I couldn't be too much of a witch about it. I eventually just called an exterminator myself.

I find that with large nests of the little ants, all you really need to do is disturb whatever plant they have moved into, and they will leave. It might take them a few hours, but you'll see them all come running out, some carrying the eggs, the "scouts"will find another place and the entire pack will follow their scent trail and move to it, some going back to the original plant to continue moving the eggs out. You really have to appreciate their hard work, and how they all function together as a team.

I am not sure exactly what function or purpose ants have on the planet, except maybe to provide food for other ants, but they are fascinating.