I rescued a bromeliad and the pups were growing nicely, still attached to the mother plant. Yesterday, I found five of these in the soil ! Plus little white bugs which are almost too small to see. What are these invaders ? Can I save the plant ?
Bugs !
I have never had "worms ??" attack my broms.
Are the white bugs "mealy bugs" or could it be scale. Broms can get scale.
What I do with a case of scale is to separate the brom that is invaded and wash it out with a strong squirt from the hose for say for 10-15 min. Then I put my gardening gloves on and rub each scale off by hand. Repeat this every 5-7 days until the plant recovers. Be sure to check between each leaf down to the throat of the plant. They hide everywhere.
Good luck.
plantsforpeg - Thanks. I'll give it a try.
I doubt those guys will hurt the Bromeliads. In nature, they are covered with all kinds of crawly insects. If they bother you I'd isolate the pot and give the soil a drench of an all-purpose insecticide like Sevin.
Dave
Dave, thanks. I just used Seven on 2 of my plants. It must have been too strong. One of them may make it but the Hurechea is a gonner.
Another forum identified the bugs as some kind of centipede. I took the plant to the garden center. It also had scale and spider mites. By the time I bought the stuff to treat the bromeliad pups, and re-potted it in new soil, I could have bought a brand new adult plant. Advice from the garden center expert - throw it away. They didn't have any new ones in stock, but I'll buy another when they do. Where did the bugs come from ?