Quarrantine

[Rocinante]

In my introduction post I asked the question "What constitutes Quarrantined?" I know it's early for a newbie to be playing "Doctor" with sick plants, but I got a P. Alice Girl that I believe has scales. I am treating the leaves with an insecticide soap. I know scales are "crawlies", so how far away from healthy plants constitutes a safe distance?

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

For scale, I would think placing the plant on a different piece of furniture would be sufficient. Aphids would be a lot further as they can fly and can probably smell their victim from a ways off. For aphids, a couple of rooms away might work.

[arleneg]

Cynthia,

How about for mites? Will putting a plant on a different furniture work, too?

[digitalgate]

different room will be better. They crawl and carried by the wind sometime.

[evagentry]

Quarantine us not only distance but also being sure you dont accidently infect you other plants with your hands or unclean instraments.

[Dan_Davis]

Reading about "Worm Tea" in the other areas of this site--would it be a good answer as well for issues?????

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

I suspect spider mites use their webs like a spider does. I expect they would dangle on the end of it to reach new territory. I have some scrub oak upwind of my opening lid of my cold frame, and I think that this has been the major source of reinfestation of my GH as spider mites seem to like the scrub oak. So, for spider mites, I would move the plants further away. Maybe flat mites aren't so problematic. Flat mites are certainly slow movers under a microscope, where spider mites are very fast movers.