Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

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Would a venus fly trap help deal with house gnats? (self.greenspace)

submitted 1 year ago by kbyanyname to c/greenspace

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I've got several small houseplants in my home office, and I really like having them around. I'm still pretty new to taking care of them altogether, though, and we've gotten dozens of tiny house gnats now. I've put up sticky traps and tried to use some pest control in the potted soil. But would a small venus fly trap be able to help here?

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[–] LallyLuckFarm 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are a few practical management steps you can take as well to help reduce the gnat load.

Sand (washed playground sand as an example) as a mulch layer over the top of the potting mix will drain quickly and removes the gnat's preferred habitat for egg laying.

Bottom watering, while admittedly slower than pouring from the top, also helps to reduce the amount of time the top layer of soil is wet enough for them. Allowing the potting mix to dry thoroughly between waterings improves the efficacy of this practice.

[–] kbyanyname 7 points 1 year ago

I knew about sand but not bottom watering! Thank you for the info!