Houseplant Pests Guide: Identify and Treat Common Indoor Bugs
The most common houseplant pests are fungus gnats, spider mites, mealybugs, thrips, and scale insects. Each one hides differently, causes different damage, and responds to a different first treatment. The fastest path to solving any of them is figuring out where the problem is showing up first, not reaching for a product. Freshness note: This guide was checked against University of Minnesota Extension, Penn State Extension, UC IPM, and University of Maryland Extension sources reviewed on 2026-05-18. The real-owner confusion notes below come from public Gardening Stack Exchange threads and are qualitative signal, not prevalence data. ...