Itty bitty black things...

I posted this in the Bug ID forum, too..

I don't have a picture, because they're too tiny for me to get a decent picture of, but I have these on several of my plants. They're black, about a millimeter in length, a fraction of a millimeter in width, and if I'm seeing it correctly (it's so tiny, it's hard to tell), it looks like it has a very short head section, with a longer body. They look like a piece of soil, actually, until I see them moving. Any ideas?

Sounds like Thrips .... What particular plants are these bugs on? Houseplants? I have two Huge Gardenia Bushes in my yard and one of them gets Thrips all over the flowers every year. I am trying to find something to control them. I didn't know they got on houseplants, but I guess it's possible! Someone told me to spray my Gardenia's with dish soapy water, but I haven't tried it yet. I hate using pesticides if I don't have to.

Can you post a photo of them? Try taking a white piece of paper or paper towel and holding it uner the leaf and shaking the plant .... should have some of those little buggers fall onto the paper. The ones on my Gardenia's are real teeny tiny little black bugs.

Hope someone has some suggestions for eradication of these critters!

They're really so tiny that it would be difficult to photograph them and have them show up as anything more than just little black dots. I checked out thrips and it appears that it just might be that. Yes, they're on my houseplants, but only a few of them. I've been using Safer's 3-in-1 spray on them about every other day, and am spraying the surface of the soil, too. It appears that they're getting less and less, so maybe I'm getting them under control before they spread to other plants. I've moved the affected plants away from the others. I found them on my passion vine (a very young one that I grew from seed), voodoo lily, and abutilon.

I think I might have to try that Safer's 3 in 1 Spray on my Gardenia's. I have used Safer's Insecticidal Soap on plants before with good results. Good luck with all your plants .... Hope you get all those little itty bitty Thrips!

And ..... I sure hope I can get rid of mine too!

I hope you do, too! I've never seen these things before, and like I said, at first I thought they were just tiny dust particles of soil and then I noticed that they moved. Slowly, but they moved.

Never seen thrips, but sounds like they might could also be fungus gnats. They lay eggs in the soil and then the larvae can't fly yet but they feed a bit off the roots of your plants. Yuck, I know. Most often they don't hurt the plant, but could. Someone posted about using diluted hydrogen peroxide to help get rid of them.

Not fungus gnats. I have those, too, although they aren't really a big problem for me. These are much smaller than fungus gnats. I had fungus gnats last winter, too, but never had these itty bitties.

I had thrips once. They are not too bad to get rid of. Main thing is to get rid of any blooms your plants have. I used an insecticidal soap and all traces of them were gone with the second spraying.

If you have blooms one way to detect thrips is to blow softly on the bloom. If the thrips are hiding the warm air from your breath with cause them to come out. They also move pretty quickly.

Mine aren't moving very quickly. They aren't on anything that's blooming. Just the calla leaves, passiflora, dracunculus, and blood lily. I noticed after I sprayed them with Safer's, it stopped them dead in their tracks.

Thrips go to blooming plants no blooms not thrips.

Then what? They really do look like thrips. And they have done the same thing as thrips - made white spots and stippled the leaves.

Is there a bug forum I'm loss sorry I have no Id

Yes, I already posted in the Bug forum.

What do thrips do when there are no blooms? I have them on my Japanese Irises every year. Maybe the blooms are what we (as humans) notice. No blooms - no interest? No interest - no bugs?

My only experience with thrips has been with avs. Blooms are a very good hinding place. The agent used to kill the thrips has a harder time getting into all the tiny places created by the blooms. That's why it is recommended to remove blooms.

The insecticidal soap with neem worked for me.

The reason you remove the blooms is Thrips feed on them. While feeding on them they spill pollen which is sometimes the first clue you have Thrips.
Here is some info from Dr. Optimara.
You could also have earwigs or other pset.
http://www.optimara.com/doctoroptimara/diagnosis/thrips.html

Thrips in the genera Frankliniella (flower thrips) and Thrips also spread plant diseases through the transmission of viruses, such as Tospoviruses. The western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, has a worldwide distribution and is considered the primary vector of plant diseases caused by Tospoviruses. Over 20 plant infecting viruses are known to be transmitted by thrips. These enveloped viruses are considered among some of the most damaging of emerging plant pathogens around the world. Virus members include the tomato spotted wilt virus and the Impatiens necrotic spot viruses.

To survive the winter temperatures most thrips species over-winter as either adults or as pupae under ground litter. A typical flower thrips generation time will be from 7 to 22 days depending on the temperature. The eggs are about 0.2 mm long and reniform (kidney shaped), and may take on average 3 days to hatch. Thrips have 2 larval stages then go through a prepupal and a pupae stage, with the adults taking 1 to 4 days to reach sexual maturity. In the two suborders, the females of the Suborder Terebrantia are equipped with an ovipositor which they use to cut slits into plant tissue into which they insert their eggs, one per slit, while females of the Suborder Tubulifera lack an ovipositor and lay their eggs singly or in small groups on the outside surface of plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrips

Well, whatever it was that I had, seems to be under control now. I haven't seen any for several days. I inspect things a couple times a day. They really did look like thrips, though.

And ewwww, don't even say earwigs. I HATE those creepy things!

That's good their under control. They have a long life stage. So you will want to treat several times if they were Thrips
Thrips
Thrips are very small (about 1/16 inch long) and slender; usually tan or dark colored. Immature thrips are white, yellow, or orange. Adults can fly, jump, or run quickly. They are difficult to see without a hand lens, though they may look like little threads on the plant.

Yep, that's what they looked like. Like this picture...