08/23/2026
To all my buyers that bought from me between June and August of 2026: After I've thought about this deeply, I decide to write this post. I'm not the best at writing and I choose not to use any AI editing tool, so if there are any messages that offends you, I apologize in advance.
Recently, I've discovered root mealies in my propergation batches. Full disclosure for the past 6 years of growing plants, I've never encountered this pests within my collections.
Fast forward, the past week, I found 3 of my plants had this bug in its pot. No, it wasn't bad I think. There are about 1-3 spots with contamination area about the size of sesame seed. I checked my other pots and have not found anything yet.
So what I did for those 3 plants, I dumped all the soil straight to the garbage and raised off as much soil as I can, if I found roots with root mealies clusters, I would wash it more, sometimes I just pinch those roots it off. Then I soak it in peroxide water 50/50 solution for 1-2 minutes, and I rainse it again and repot it into new soil and added extra systemic granulets.
Now for my buyers, sorry for the long story, but I recently received a message from a buyer from early July told me that the lacunosa Winter Pandora she got from me, she found the root mealies 💀 so that's when I realized this pest infestation is not that simple.
Therefore, to all of you that bought from me, whether you heard of this bug or not, whether you are freaking out or not, check the plants that you got from me. I hate to keep this a secret and somehow cause a problem in your collection. And if you found them, you can try the treatment I wrote above, or you can reach out to me for more help.
I'm going to attach some photo of what they look like. I'm very sorry that this is happening, and if you don't find it, keep an eye out, or sprinkle some systemic granulets at least. I don't think the infestation is that bad, I have 6 trays in my grow tent, I think it's only in one of the tray, and less than a quarter of the tray might have it. So if I had to guess, it's about 10-30% of the plants I sold that might have it. If you send me a picture of the ones you are not sure, I can also tell you the likely which tray it was from and the likelyhoof of it have it or not.
Overall, do I know where the mealies could've came from? Yes, I'm like 80% sure it's from this one plant that I bought. If not, there is only one other plant that it could be. And how could it got transferred? The soil it came from looks really clean and even thought I repotted it right away, i might've kepted the original soil in the dump pile and sometimes I scoop from there if I ran out of soils and needs supplements. I usually don't recycle soil, only from soil that's from my own or from reputable sellers and soil looks clean. All I'm trying to say is I still am a very responsible seller, I try my best to sell the healthiest plant to my customers, and I will continue to do so. But I take this as a lesson learned that I shouldn't recycle soils and I need to learn to be transparent to people as well.
I hope I didn't scare you off tho, treating pests is part of the plant journey, I've always heard of this bug but have never dealt with it, and it's been 6 years so I guess it's about time. Hopefully my treatment works and I can get rid of this before it gets worse.
Again, sorry for the troubles, if you have any issues, please feel free to reach out to me.
