Bonide 652 Ready-to-Use Insect Soap, Quart

I love this. It works fantastic. I tried several things to kill whatever was infesting my house plant and this is so simple to use. It’s non-toxic. It doesn’t have a smell or leave a residue and it works fast and it killed all the little bugs.

This insecticidal soap works great! I was very annoyed by aphids flying throughout my house so I sprayed 24 house plants sizes 4”-16” tall including the soils and stems. It’s now day 2 and there are no aphids anywhere. My plants look happy and relieved too. I definitely recommend this product. Works better than homemade remedies I tried in the past.

I have used different brands of insecticidal soap before, and they are all very helpful in killing many bugs. It is worth noting, however, that no spray can kill thrips that are inside unopened blooms such as rose blooms. If adults are on the plant, or larvae are on the soil (the top of the soil should also be sprayed), the soap will kill them. I like to alternate a product like this with pyrethrin spray. Pyrethrin spray should be used just before dark after good pollinators are retired for the night, or use it very, very early in the morning so it has a chance to fully dry before your good pollinators are up and about for the day. With pyrethrin, you can spray the entire plant including the blooms and the top soil. Pyrethrin has a short half life, so once it is dried the next morning, it will not harm your honey bees, Ladybugs, butterflies, etc. This insecticidal soap is risky for open blooms. AVOID spraying it on open blooms. This soap is a contact killer, so once it is dry, it stops working and will wash off with tap and rain water. This is a good thing. Some gardeners spray with Neem Oil, but I personally do not like Neem Oil. It literally coats everything, and once you spray it on, it does NOT wash off. This means plants in hot weather, especially plants in hot, sunny areas of the garden, will literally FRY in the sun. Neem Oil is better used as a soil drench in my opinion. I would never purchase it again. One last BIG thing to warn you about is that there are TWO VERSIONS of this insecticidal soap, this one v. the Super Soap and the Deadbug Brew. This one does NOT contain Spinosad, but the Super Soap and the Deadbug Brew DO contain Spinosad. If you use any product that contains Spinosad, you MUST not use it more than 6X in an entire growing season, and you should wait 7-10 days between applications. Why? Because bugs can quickly become immune to the Spinosad, and then your bug population will explode exponentially. So, for example, let us say you discover thrips on your rose bushes on May 1st. You can use either the Super Soap or the Deadbug Brew on May 1st. Then, wait 7-10 days before applying a second time. Each successive time you use it, you should wait 7-10 days. Once you have used it 6 times, STOP. Do NOT use it anymore for the rest of the growing season. This is actually the law believe it or not. You should never use any product so often that the insects become resistant to it. Thrips are a big problem in my garden because I have a lot of roses, and they are particularly attracted to white, yellow, and any other light coloured rose, although once they have a toehold in the garden, they do not discriminate and will attack any colour rose, but the light coloured ones are what first attracts them. Thrips are especially difficult to get rid of because the female bores a hole into the sepals of unopened blooms to lay her eggs. Once inside they quickly hatch and begin to feed on the unopened buds. The buds may not fully open at all, or they may open and reveal the damaged petals inside which will look brown in spots. Spraying the entire rose bush and the top soil with pyrethrins kills adults and larvae on the soil, but it has no effect on the thrips inside the unopened or barely opened blooms. This is why killing thrips takes time and patience. What is the best way to eradicate thrips on your roses? Immediately snip off any thrip infested bud or bloom and seal in a plastic bag. Do NOT compost the buds and blooms. Dispose of the snipped buds and blooms in the trash. Spray your entire rose bush with pyrethrin just before dark. By morning, the rose bush will not be harmful to desirable pollinators. Wait three days and spray with the regular insecticidal soap, i.e. the one that does NOT contain Spinosad. AVOID spraying on buds and blooms. Wait three days and retreat with pyrethrin. Wait another three days and treat with pyrethrin. Wait another three days (it will be six days by now) and treat with insecticidal soap. Repeat this process for at least four weeks. I am witnessing an improve with my rose bushes, but I have been following this routine for about three weeks so far. Based on the outcome so far, I estimate I will continue this routine for another three weeks. I may have to continue for more than another three weeks until I see no more evidence of thrips. It is best to wear gloves and eye protection whilst using any of these products. Spray on calm nights, i.e. night with little breeze. Wash of any product that may get on you with soap and warm water. Keep animals and children away from treated plants until they are completely dry. One other thing I will mention is predator insects. Large growers of roses, for example, buy and release predator insects in their greenhouses. The predator insects eat a lot of unwanted bugs such as thrips. If you can find predator insects and afford them (they are not as cheap as using insecticidal soap and pyrethin), and if you would rather not use products such as this one, then predator insects maybe the solution to your bug problem.

Mealybugs... bane of my existence. Was given a pothos, it was nice. Until it infested three of my other plants. I tried spot cleaning with cue-tips dipped in alcohol, I tried neem oil, I considered setting my apartment on fire... most of the products recommended on reddit and Instagram are not available in California, so what was I to do? Well, I took a flyer on this stuff and went absolutely "Apocalypse Now" on every plant that showed even a remote sign of a potential mealybug. I've slaughtered hundreds of them now... this stuff works, but you must be ruthless. Quarantine the infested plants (this is crucial... what you might not notice are the tiny little white specs floating around... these are the males, and they must be killed too). Once in quarantine, douse them - every inch, every crevice. Make it rain death on these foul little pests. Wait. Wipe them down. Then do it again the next day. And the next. It has taken four days of nonstop treating... finally I have taken the plants out and hosed them down... so far, no more signs of mealybugs. But these things are evil incarnate and I do not believe we're done... needless to say I have re-purchased this product, in fact I recommend you but two right off the bat. Don't be afraid to use a heavy hand.

Used this in conjuction with alcohol 70% to get rid of mealy bugs on my plants. So far its helped a lot more than just with the alcohol alone. I've been battleling these mealy bugs for months. They are persistent little buggers. I also sprinkled some insecticide on the soil that should help keep them at bay for a few weeks as well. They might have won the battle but we will see who wins the war. Spray works well, durable and very easy to use, no strong odor, good value for your money.