Well, here we go again. Now I know I have a soil problem. I just discarded half a bag of it.
This is a newly potted amaryllis. Right now, it has no leaves, just two flower stalks–and a ton of this.
When it first occurred, my mind was on other things and I thought, “Eww. My amaryllis is covered with mold.” Then one day I went to take a closer look and realized that no, it wasn’t in fact a white mold covering the amaryllis; it was a complete infestation of mealy bugs.
I tried a shot of Neem but as with most house plant pests, they outbreed the Neem. Over the weekend I simply washed the plant down with a little soapy water. But I am going to have 2 problems here.
The first is all the crevices on the bulb itself where the insects can hide.
The second is that mealy bug eggs can live for over 2 years in soil. This plant is getting re-potted as soon as it finished blooming–if it ever manages to do so with such a heavy infestation of insects, poor thing!