parid09

I suppose I will add my penny. Spider mites are more of a containment thing, as they are incredible survivors, and multiply like there is no tommorow. I have tried the soaps, alcohol, mite predators and insecticides and pretty much ended up with a bunch of remains to be added to the mulch pile. Sometimes I have wondered how the whole banana thing ever survived and evolved in the wild in the first place, but many battles later, the big picture begins to emerge. I am one of the outside during the summer, inside during the winter crowd, and fully expect the mites to attack after moving the plants into my sun porch. I have found that a good blasting with a 409 bottle full of rainwater (I can't use my tap water because it is too "hard" and results in mineral buildup on the leaves) on both sides of the leaf and pseudo stem. I then follow up by carefully wiping off the water with a terrycloth towel, changing the towel often. Spider mites cannot hang on that well, so the blasting blows them off, and the towelling off removes the eggs, webbing and the "dandruff" that they leave behind. I do this at least once a week, and doing 25 plants, some nearing six feet tall, is more than time consuming, but it really keeps their numbers down. If you have a crowded situation with other plants, they will just re-infect very quickly, so try to open things up as much as you can. Keep a close eye on the midrib of the leaves, and the outer margins, and just assume they are there. Using chemicals also kills other mite predators that might be present, and with mites, you need all of the help you can get. I found that the mindset of getting rid of each and every mite resulted in my getting rid of each and every banana plant, so give this a try. After doing this, all my nanners are looking great, and growing well, so give it a shot. Just about everybody that has lived with nanners has found that life for them is a constant battle, but well worth the trouble! Good luck and keep us posted.