Thrips on Pothos: How To Identify and Get Rid Of Them

Of all the pests in this silo, thrips are the one that will actually come for your Pothos.

Mealybugs would rather be on a Hoya.

Aphids prefer something soft.

Scale mostly bothers Monstera and palm owners.

Thrips are interested in everything, they live outdoors in numbers that would ruin your day if you thought about them properly, and they have a life cycle that seems specifically designed to make you feel like you’re losing your mind.

Also known as thunderbugs, which is a much better name for something so small and so annoying.

Luckily, a Pothos is very hard to kill, thrips damage looks worse than it is, and the routine that keeps them under control is boring and cheap.

Here’s the bad news: you are not going to get rid of them permanently, and anybody telling you otherwise wants your money.

What thrips look like

Adults are skinny black specks, like a grain of rice that’s been left in the sun. Two millimetres or so. They’re fast, they run rather than sit still, and they can fly, which is how they got into your house in the first place.

Larvae look completely different: pale, sometimes translucent, sometimes yellowish-green, and vaguely worm-shaped. If you see something small and pale wriggling on a new leaf, that’s your answer. Larvae are the ones doing most of the eating.

The two stages look so unalike that plenty of people conclude they have two separate problems.

What thrips damage looks like

This matters more than spotting the insect, because you will almost always see the damage first.

• Silvery or bronze patches, often with a faint metallic sheen. This is the classic tell. Thrips scrape the leaf surface and drink what comes out, and the emptied cells go pale and reflective.
• Tiny black dots scattered across the damage. That’s thrips waste. Charming.
• Distorted new growth. Leaves that unfurl crumpled, puckered, or with edges that don’t sit right.
• Growth that just stops. No new leaves for months on a plant that has enough light and water is a legitimate thrips symptom.

That third and fourth point are why thrips do more long-term harm than something dramatic like mealybugs. They target soft new growth, which means they hit the plant where it’s building its future.

If you suspect thrips, watch your unfurling leaves like a hawk. A new leaf that opens up already damaged is close to a confirmed diagnosis.

Why Does My Pothos Have Black Spots?

Not seeing them means nothing

Thrips hide in cavities small enough that you would need to take the plant apart to find them: inside tightly rolled new leaves, in the crease where the leaf meets the stem, in the gap between the stem and a moss pole.

So “I looked and I couldn’t see any” is not evidence of anything.

This is the single most common mistake people make, and it’s the reason so many Reddit posts go: someone identifies thrips from the photo, the owner insists they’ve checked and there’s nothing there, and three weeks later there is very obviously something there.

My working position, which I recommend you adopt: assume every plant in your house has thrips at all times.

Not because it’s true, but because it’s useful. Someone who assumes they have thrips wipes leaves down, checks new growth, and keeps their plants in decent light.

That person never gets an infestation.

Someone who assumes their plants are clean finds out otherwise the hard way.

Why your spray keeps failing

This is the part most thrips articles skip, and it explains everything.

Thrips have four stages, and you can only reach two of them:

1. Egg. The female cuts into the leaf and lays the egg inside the tissue. Not on the surface. Inside. Nothing you spray onto a leaf will touch it.

2. Larva. Hatches out, feeds on the leaf. Sprayable, and this is the stage doing visible damage.

3. Prepupa and pupa. The larva stops feeding, drops off the plant, and burrows into the top layer of soil to transform. It isn’t eating and it isn’t on the leaf, so it’s untouchable.

4. Adult. Comes back up, flies about, mates, lays more eggs inside your leaves. Sprayable (also squishable).

So at any moment, part of the population is sealed inside your leaves and another part is sitting in your soil, and neither cares what you just sprayed.

This is exactly why you spray, the thrips disappear, you feel briefly excellent about yourself, and eight days later they’re back. They were never gone. You killed the visible ones and the rest carried on to schedule.

Which leads to the single most important practical rule on this page: one treatment is not a treatment. Whatever method you pick, repeat it every five to seven days for at least three weeks. You’re not clearing an infestation in one go, you’re standing at the exit catching each new batch as it emerges.

How to actually deal with thrips

1. Fix the plant’s living conditions first

A stressed plant releases hormones that make it more attractive to pests. This is not a wellness metaphor, it’s how the plant works, and it means that light and water are pest control.

If your Pothos is in a dim corner and gets watered when you remember, no spray on earth is going to fix your thrips problem, because you have built them a resort. Sort the light (get a grow light – make those thrips feel lke they’re being interrogated). Sort the watering.

2. Physical removal, on repeat

Take the plant to the shower or the sink and blast it, undersides included. Wipe the leaves down. Do it weekly.

It sounds too simple to work and it is the backbone of everything. You’re not aiming for a kill, you’re aiming to keep numbers so low that the population can never build to the point of visible damage. A Pothos with a handful of thrips on it is a fine Pothos.

If you don’t have a pressure sprayer, get one. They make watering and hosing plants down way more fun. And you get to pretend to be a ghostbuster.

Please find my affiliate link below. It will take you to Amazon, but no one else freaking sells them.

Get your pressure sprayer here.

3. Soap or oil

Insecticidal soap or neem oil, which work by suffocating whatever they land on. I don’t measure. A drop of oil, or even dish soap, in a one litre spray bottle.

Do it in the evening. Both make leaves more likely to scorch in strong light, neem especially.

Remember the rule: every five to seven days, for at least three weeks. A single application accomplishes very little.

I would add an affiliate link, but I’m unlikely to retire on insecticidal soap money. Just look for insecticidal or horticultural soap. Any will do.

Neem oil also works (it’s not a god send but it won’t killall your plants, which are the two extremes you’ll find online)

Dish soap also works.

4. Systemic pesticides, if you can get them

A systemic is absorbed into the plant’s sap, so the entire plant becomes toxic to anything that feeds on it.

It’s worth being precise about why this works so well, because it isn’t what most people assume.

A systemic doesn’t kill the eggs. Eggs don’t feed, so there’s nothing to absorb.

What it does is make the plant lethal to every larva the moment it hatches and takes its first bite, and it keeps doing that for weeks.

Instead of you standing at the exit with a spray bottle, the plant handles it.

In the US, granules you sprinkle into the soil are widely available. Bonide Systemic Houseplant Insect Control is the one you’ll see recommended most often, and it’s popular for a reason.

In the UK and EU, this class of pesticide is restricted and you can’t buy it for home use. That isn’t an oversight you can work around, so if that’s where you are, skip to predatory mites.

If you can get them, a few sensible caveats: keep treated plants away from anything you’d eat, keep pets and children away from the granules themselves, and don’t use them on a plant that’s going outside where pollinators can reach it.

Pothos almost never flower indoors, so that last one is rarely an issue here, but it matters for the rest of your collection.

5. Predatory mites, if you’re serious

The closest thing to a real solution, and the one I’d point you at if systemics are off the table.

Amblyseius cucumeris is the standard recommendation and it targets thrips larvae. There are also larger predators that go after the adults.

The order matters, and almost nobody mentions this. Deploy the adult-eaters first, then bring in the larvae-eaters afterwards. If you release both together, the adult predators will happily eat the larvae predators, and you’ll have spent good money on lunch.

Two honest caveats. They’re slow. You’re waiting for a predator population to establish before you see results, so this is not a panic button. And they’re not cheap, though a sachet lasts a long time and most come with feeding instructions so you can keep the colony going for the next round.

If the idea of deliberately introducing bugs into your home is putting you off: they’re mites, smaller than the pests they’re eating. Once the sachets are hung up you will not see them again.

Predatory mite sachets

And the soil stage

Since thrips pupate in soil, there is a product for that too: Steinernema feltiae, a microscopic nematode you water in.

I’m mentioning it for completeness rather than pushing it (also they are NOT cheap). For most people with a Pothos and a mild case, leaf cleaning and consistent care will get you where you need to be without ordering worms.

A note on sticky traps

Blue sticky traps get recommended constantly for thrips.

I have tried them, but I did not catch a single thrips. They do work for fungus gnats though.

(I also think they’re mean).

When to cut your losses

If most of the leaves are silvered, or the plant hasn’t put out undamaged growth in months, stop treating and start cutting.

Chop it back to the soil. Pothos regrow from the base with real enthusiasm, a hard chop takes the entire pest population with it, and you skip six months of staring at damaged leaves that were never going to recover. Damaged leaves don’t heal. New ones are the only way out.

Take a few clean cuttings from the healthiest vines first if you want insurance.

How To Propagate Pothos: Every Method Explained

How to not get them in the first place

A lofty goal, but why not?

Quarantine new plants. Two weeks somewhere away from everything else. Most infestations arrive by post or by shop, and this one habit prevents more thrips problems than any spray.

I actually can’t quarantine new plants, because any spot that can have a plant, has a plant. Oh well.

Be careful about putting Pothos outside in spring. A damp, sunny spring is thrips heaven, and a plant sitting outdoors is a plant advertising itself to the entire local population.

Check when you water. Turn a couple of leaves over, look at the newest growth. That’s the whole inspection and it costs you fifteen seconds.

Frequently asked questions