Looking for help please

I have a plant in the house that I bought at Walmart a few months ago. I think the label on it said it was a croton. I was just looking at it and it has what looks like spider webs between that leaves and looks like little spiders on it. Could someone tell me what I might be able to do to get rid of these? I would really apprecaite your help. Don't know when they could have got on there because I look at the plants almost everyday and I do not recall seeing them yesterday. Would like to keep it cause it does look pretty good and has really started to grow. So if anyone has any ideas I would really like the help.
Thanks!!!!

Melissa,

You have Spider Mites--a very common problem on houseplants. The webs are a dead giveaway. They are as small, or smaller, that a period in this print. If you want to see one, get a piece of white paper, hold it under the leaves on the plant and give the leaves a couple of sharp taps. You will see dark, dust-like particles on the paper. Hold it still, and you will see them start moving. Those are Spider Mites.

Spider mites are sucking insects that live on the undersides of plants and suck the juices out of the leaves. Then the leaves turn brown and curl up and fall off. They make webs and lay their eggs and propagate very fast. I bet all the leaves feel 'sticky" too--if you touch them. Right???? . That is the "honeydew" they excrete from the digestion of all the plant sugars they suck out of the plant. This will also happen with Scale and Aphids. ALL suckers!!!!

First thing I would do is take the plant outside and give it a good, sharp hosing off--especially the bottoms of the leaves. A lot of S.M.'s can be dislodged this way. Then I would start a spraying regiment with some kind of Insect Spray for houseplants. Do it every 10 days about 3 times. That should take care of it.

S.M.'s usually go to dry, neglected plants. If a plant is healthy, misted and the soil is moist, they do not come as easily. As to how you got them? They can just appear out of nowhere! I have had this problem myself. Very common--but they sure can do damage to your plants!
By the way, S.M.'s may just be on ONE plant and never travel to another one, but isolating the infected plant is a good idea.

Hope this helped you,
Gita

Thank you very much. I will give that a try in the morning. As far as I can tell it is only on the one plant. I did take it and set it back in a different room a way from any others so hopefully that is the only one. Again thank you and I will give it a try.

I would give any others that were near it the same treatment, they spread very easily between plants but you usually don't notice them at first, but now you have a chance to treat those other plants before they become a problem and infect yet more plants.