Pod Plants

For the last couple of weeks, presumably because of the warm and humid weather, there has been a sudden upsurge in the population of fungus gnats in the house. They live in compost, and although the ‘official’ advice for keeping them under control is to let compost dry out between waterings, I have never found it to be of any use. I’m an erratic waterer anyway, but dry soil doesn’t seem to deter these little flies.

As I have mentioned before, fungus gnats (AKA sciarid flies) don’t fly very well. They seem to be attracted by damp heat, and so have a tendency to fly at your face or into your cup of tea. In fact, any dregs of liquid left lying around are likely to become a fungus gnat graveyard.

They’re pretty easy to kill – you can literally grab them out of the air if you’re so inclined, but occur in such numbers it’s hard to keep them under control. Yellow sticky traps work really well until they fill up with little black bodies; carnivorous plants can also help, and turn a waste product into a resource – recycle your flies into plant food!

With something as tiny as a fungus gnat, a Venus fly trap just doesn’t get the job done – there’s not enough weight to trigger the traps. Pitcher plants would probably work (I haven’t managed to keep one alive for long yet) but the best plants for this kind of pest control job are definitely the Drosera family – the sundews. Generally easy to look after (there are even some that will happily survive outside in the UK climate), they produce sticky little globules over their leaves that are perfect for trapping tiny flies and insects.

I have a couple that have lived in the humid environment of the bathroom for several years, but I have a tendency to forget to water them (and they must have rainwater, not tap) and so they look a little sad. But I have invested in another 6 plants so that we can have them all over the house, and this time I will look after them better. I bought 3 Drosera dichotoma – the Fork Leaved Sundew – which has dense sticky leaves that should be perfect, 1 Drosera aliciae – Alice Sundew, 1 Drosera capensis alba – Cape Sundew, white form, and 1 Drosera scorpiodes, a pygmy sundew native to Australia. They all came from The Little Shops of Horrors and arrived today (I ordered them on Sunday) all nicely packed in what looks like plastic drinking glasses to keep them safe, which is a fabulous idea and I can reuse the glasses as mini-propagators or for sending plants out myself. I did look locally, but couldn’t find anywhere that sold suitable plants in good condition.

The idea of having several sorts was that I could see which ones adapt themselves to life here well and which ones do the job best. And of course, it’s more interesting :)