Foil Thrips Indoors and Out with Aluminum Mulch

Thrips are tiny insects but in groups can devastate a huge varierty of plants from onions, carrots, cucumbers, houseplants and greenhouse crops to roses. They cause a characteristic silvery mottling of leaves and distort flower buds. Quick out of the chute, they can reproduce in as little as a month, but they can foiled literally by using or reusing aluminum foil as mulch around their favorite plants. Making a foil barrier a foot (30 cm) wide(anchor with rocks or soil) will disorient thrips who are looking for the duller earth colors, preventing them from laying more eggs, or the shiny mulch may also serve to prevent soil-borne pupae from emerging to morph into egg-laying, plant-eating adults.