Question
I have a hanging house plant in our kitchen.  It has two different types of ivy and a cute little fuzzy-stemmed plant with dark green papery-feeling leaves that have either white or pink veins on them.  I don't know how to describe the shape of the leaves except to say that they are a typical leaf shape-- meaning that they start out small near the steam, gradually increase in width and then taper back to a soft point at the end of the leaf.  This plant (the one with the pink and white veins) is absolutely thriving.  It blooms all the time with these funny, tall wheat-shaped flowers.  The pot is hanging beneath a florescent light that is on most of the time.  It also gets some ambient sunlight and light from incandescent bulbs in other parts of the kitchen, but the sunlight is filtered through 2 windows(the plant is hanging in front of a window that faces a 3-season room with windows that get afternoon light.)  Most of the plants in the pot are thriving, but some strands of the ivy are just completely dying.  They don't whither or turn brown, they just suddenly  become completely dried out.  When I've tried to pull out these dead strands, they come out still sharing roots with perfectly healthy strands of the same plant.  The dead strands have a small, white fuzzy circle around the stalk, just above the point of entering the soil.  I have noticed little flies that look like fruit flies kind of flitting around.  They fly up in my face when I bring the plant down to water it.  On closer inspection, one of the types of ivy has little black dots on the underside of the mature leaves.  New leaves have tiny, tiny white dots all over them.  I also found a dead leaf in the soil that had  tiny whitish colored insects running around on it among the white dots.  In some places the soil has a light orange colored fungus growing on it.  This plant is hanging next to  a philodendron with heart-shaped leaves.  The philodendron does not seem to be affected at all.

Answer
Lindsey,

The "fruit flies" are fungus gnats and they and the fungus are caused by overwatering the plants. Most ivies hate to be overwatered. Cut back on the water, water it less often and give it a smaller amount. Also spray the fungus on the soil with a Lysol type spray twice a week for 2 weeks and it will disappear. Spray the insects and the dots which are probably eggs with rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle twice a week on alternate days  for 2 weeks and it will kill them. Too much water does more damage to many plants than too little water does. Cut back on the water and you plants will be happier. They hate sitting in swamps. Good luck.

Darlene