Is it possible to manage pests without harsh chemicals or pesticides? 

Yes! There are a variety of ways to manage plant pests without harming the other insects that call your plant and garden home. First, it's important to understand plant "pests", their role, and why they end up on our plants.

For the sake of keeping this short, we will be discussing common houseplant plants such as mealies, aphids, and spider mites. As many plant keepers know, insects are a normal part of earth and the environment. When growing in the wild, these insects are a normal part of daily life in the rainforest. The difference between owning plants in your home and them growing in nature, is that in nature, there is a symbiotic relationship with these "pests." Other insects, both benign and beneficial, feed on them, along with animals and reptiles that call the same forests home. All of these critters help to keep the harmful insects in check, so there is little chance at massive infestation.

While this is true to some degree in our homes, the plants in our homes are much more likely to have weakened immune systems to assist in controling these insect populations. In the wild, they get exactly what they need and are happy and healthy. This is often not the case in cultivation, especially with sensitive tropical plants. The less ideal conditions your plant grows in, and the more it struggles to thrive, the more susceptible it is to an out of control infestation by one of these common pests. 

After reading that, you may see that your best defense against pests, is just providing your plant with conditions that will mimic its natural environment as closely as possible. When a plant is healthy, you may see a few pests show up here and there, but the plant will not develop a full blown infestation that puts the plants life at risk. 

But my plant IS infested!!!! What do I do?!?!!!??

The most important thing to do is stay calm! Panicking and throwing the kitchen sink at your plant oftentimes makes the situation worse. Understand that your plant will not die from these pests overnight, and even a full infestation can take weeks or more. Stay calm, be patient, and do your research before coming up with a plan of attack. There is no one size fits all pest treatment plan for every pest and every plant and every human. 

First, determine which pest(s) you are dealing with, some are much easier to treat than others. If they are too small for you to identify, try using a jewelers loupe to give you a better look. Once you have identified your pest(s), you will want to figure out the exact lifecycle. Most treatment methods will not kill the eggs, so you will need to regularly repeat your treatment method based on their hatch cycle. For most pests, you will continue treatment for at least 30 days to ensure all eggs and larvae are gone.

Strangely, some pests make their way onto our plants because they've been recruited by other bugs. Certain species of ants will enslave aphids because the ants like to feed on the sticky substance they excrete. This is not the case for all aphid infestations, and sometimes the ants show up secondarily to the pests. While most often occuring outdoors in the garden, it is possible for both pests to make their way indoors and infest your houseplants. If this is the case, you will need to treat the ants to fully eradicate the aphids.

Now for my recommended treatment methods:

Honestly, the vast majority of the time, I try to only use water. A common practice in the carnivorous plant community is to submerge plants for 48 hours when they become infested. Many other species of plants can handle this submersion as well, and it is an incredibly effective method. The plants can also be dunked into water, or sprayed off with the shower head. 

If you prefer something a little stronger, isopropyl alcohol is my next go to. Using this requires extreme caution, as it can and will cause burns to your plant if light exposure happens before the alcohol has fully evaporated off. I always recommend doing this at night without plant lights on so there is sufficient time for drying before the sun comes up.  70% isopropyl alcohol is best. I generally use it as a dunk, a spray or on paper towels to wipe the plant down. 

It's also important to remember that these pests will not only be on the foliage. They will be on(or in) the soil, the pot, the surface the pot sits on, and sometimes even the nearby walls and floors. You will need to thoroughly wipe and clean all areas around the plant to ensure you've dealt with the stragglers. When treating the plant, you will need to ensure you get 100% coverage of all stems and leaves as well. These pests love to hide in the tiny nooks and crannies of your plant. This is why I suggest submerging or dunking above anything else, and you get the added benefit of removing some of the eggs with these methods as well. 

What about beneficial insects?

These can work in some situations, but many of them will only eat the targeted pest, and when the population runs out, the beneficials will die off too. Some beneficial insects will also only munch on plant pests as larvae, and many of the adults become airborne once matured, such as green lacewings. Food can be purchased for adult lacewings to keep the population going. If you go this route, it's important to do research on the benficials you are considering and see if there is any after care you'll need to do for adults or once the pests are gone. Benficial insects can be a great option, but they're best in greenhouses or for large growers.

All in all, plant pests are not that scary once you understand them, and they are an important part of a healthy ecosystem. 

Ok...that's great! But how did they get here?!

Because these insects are so small, they can easily sneak into your home. The most common vector is actually you. When you are in a garden center, outdoors, or at another plant owners home, you pick up these pests on your shoes or body without even knowing. Then, you go home and bring them with you, and because some of these pests can asexually reproduce, it only takes one. They can also come in on visitors, your pets, or through open windows. Due to their size, a light wind is all it takes to blow them right in.