Thrips
Slivers the size of a hyphen, tan to black, that rasp the surface off leaves and petals — the damage reads as silvery streaks and speckled scarring with tiny black droppings. Tap a flower over white paper and they fall out and run.
Pest checklist
Four things to look for. If most of them match what you are holding, you are in the right place.
What gets rid of them
Gentlest option first. For most backyard cases the first one is enough, so try these in order and stop as soon as it works. If you do spray something, the product label tells you how — please read the notice further down.
1Blue sticky traps
Thrips prefer blue over yellow; hang at canopy height to intercept the fliers.
blue sticky traps thripsTry this first2Insecticidal soap or neem
Contact sprays repeated on schedule; thrips hide in buds, so coverage matters more than product.
neem oil concentrate plants3Remove spent blooms and weeds
Both are thrips nurseries; sanitation slows every following generation.
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Which plants get thrips
Every plant we cover that gets thrips, grouped by type — tap any one to open its page. A note beside a plant came from that plant’s own entry, because the same pest can be a minor nuisance on one plant and a serious problem on another. Plenty of plants we do not cover get it too.
annual1
bulbs4
Plant families hit hardest
Related plants often share the same problems, so if one plant in a family has it, check the others. The largest group here is Amaryllidaceae, with 5 of the 10 affected plants.
- Amaryllidaceae5 plants
- Araceae2 plants
When to treat
Treat as soon as you see the silvering. They breed continuously through warm weather.
On specific plants
- Dormant
- Dust stored corms if thrips rode along.
- Growing
- Release-friendly: blast or soap thrips early; badly streaked spikes get cut and binned.
Timing only — the label is the law
This page tells you when to watch for thrips and when treating is worth considering. It is not a recommendation to apply any particular product. Read and follow the product label before you spray — under federal law the label is the legal instruction, and using a pesticide against it is illegal.
- Check the pre-harvest interval. Every product that’s cleared for an edible crop sets a minimum number of days between spraying and picking. Find it on the label before you spray anything you intend to eat.
- Check the re-entry interval before you or anyone else works in the treated area again, and use the protective equipment the label names.
- Confirm the product is registered for your crop in your state. This page groups many different crops together, and a product legal on one of them is not legal on all of them — state registrations differ too. Your state pesticide agency or local extension office can confirm both.
- Rates and mixing instructions come from the label, never from us. We don’t publish them because they differ by product and formulation.
Other problems on the same plants
If a plant gets thrips, these are the problems it most often gets as well, so they are worth checking for while you are out there. They tend to appear together; one does not cause another.