How To Use Non-Chemical Solutions

Some people have allergies to chemicals, including herbicides and pesticides. I grow 200 orchids indoors in the winter. Many of these go out into the greenhouse in the summer. So, chemicals in my house is not okay. I use these products.

Dawn Dish soap, Peroxide, Cinnamon, and Rubbing alcohol

Dawn dish soap:

With 1 tablespoon in a spray bottle, 16 ounces with warm water, sprayed on your orchid that has mealy bugs, will suffocate the mealy bugs. Do not spray on blooms if you can help it. Most mealy bugs are on the soft stems of new blooms. Do this once per week, for at least two weeks. I also take the bottle and pour the soapy water over the media and count it as that week’s watering. It kills all bugs in the media. Most orchids will go on to bloom. You recognize mealy bugs by some clear droplets on the new stems. They look like drops of water. But when you touch them they are sticky. Spray your orchid and separate the infected orchid from the other orchids. Mealy bugs can travel across a room, so keep watching for these clear droplets that look like water drops. Wash your hands thoroughly, or take off your gloves and get new gloves if you have touched a sick orchid. Keep in mind that mealy bugs can live in curtains, in brick walls, and a variety of surfaces, so spray them all.

 Rubbing alcohol to clean tools.

If you have one tool and you use it into several plants, spray off the tool and wipe clean with a paper towel after each plant. You can easily pass illness from one plant to another with your hands or tools.

When cutting back orchids, always clean between plants. Any tool you use with one plant, should be cleaned before you go on to another plant.

I also use alcohol with water, ¼ bottle of alcohol and fill the bottle with fresh water, shake and spray the back of leaves that have bugs. Cymbidiums get different bugs on them and often the bugs are on the back of the leaves. Spray or spread with a cotton ball. This will kill the bugs.

 Peroxide mixed with water, ½ and ½.

Use this for white mold that is powdery on the leaves. It will fizz on the leaves and that is good. Use it once per week for three weeks and keep that plant and all plants with bugs or disease away from all your other orchids. I spray both the top and the bottom of the leaves. This also works on brown spots and other diseases. The brown spots will not go away but they will stop spreading. When mixing peroxide with water, only store for one week and throw out. The plastic in all bottles with peroxide, rubbing alcohol, and any strong natural product can deteriorate and make the solution toxic.

Diseases or bugs, cinnamon rubbed on the brown spots will help stop the spread. Cinnamon does deter bugs.

Cinnamon can deter bugs and will help stop the spread of brown spots. The brown spots often spread out meaning elongate or get larger on the leaf but they do not spread. These are simple solutions but they work wonderfully if you don’t like chemicals.