Pest Treatment Planner
Most pest treatments fail for the same reason: people stop too early. The spray kills what is visible and leaves the eggs, and a fresh generation arrives a week later.
Pick your pest below for a schedule built around its actual lifecycle — what to do today, what to do each week after, and what to look for before you decide it worked.
Fungus Gnats
4 stages · typically 3–4 weeks
Mealybugs
6 stages · typically 8 weeks
Spider Mites
4 stages · typically 3–4 weeks
Aphids
3 stages · typically 2–3 weeks
Whiteflies
4 stages · typically 3–4 weeks
Squash Bugs
4 stages · typically the rest of the season
How these plans are built
Each schedule is derived from our own treatment guide for that pest, which in turn draws on university extension research — Minnesota on squash bug thresholds, UC Davis IPM on why sprays bead off mealybugs, NC State on egg-sac protection.
The stages exist because of lifecycle arithmetic, not padding. Fungus gnats take about three weeks from egg to adult, so a two-week plan guarantees a fourth-week relapse. Mealybug eggs sit protected inside waxy sacs for six to fourteen days, so the plan rotates modes of action instead of repeating one. Where a treatment is not organic, it is marked, and you can filter it out entirely.
Not sure which pest you have? Start with the diagnosis tool — treating the wrong pest wastes weeks.
Get seasonal plant care reminders and pest alerts.