Pro tip: The Atlanta Botanical Garden taught me to always check the leaf undersides

I was there last month looking at their fern collection and a volunteer pointed out a tiny scale insect infestation on my favorite maidenhair fern that I'd totally missed. I was only looking at the top of the leaves, but the pests were all hiding underneath. Now I flip over at least 5 leaves on any new plant I bring home. What's your go-to method for a quick plant health check?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max1mo agoTop Commenter

Honestly that sounds like way too much work. I just give my plants a good look from the top when I water them. If they look green and aren't dropping leaves, they're fine. Flipping over five leaves on every new plant is overkill. Most bugs you can see from the top anyway, or they make the leaves look weird. I've never had a major pest problem and I've been keeping plants for years without all that extra checking.

victorb511mo ago

Wow, you've been lucky then. I flip leaves because I've seen what happens when you miss spider mites or scale early. They hide under there and by the time the top looks bad, you've got an infestation. Your method works until it doesn't, and then you're fighting a war instead of a quick battle. It takes me two minutes to check a new plant, which is way less work than spraying everything later.

skylercooper1mo ago

You're right that some bugs show up on top, but spider mites make tiny webs only underneath leaves at first. I've caught them early that way when the tops still looked perfect. @victorb51 has a point about it being faster to check than to treat later. Scale insects also start hidden under leaves before they spread. Missing them means wiping down every stem later.