A landscape pest from the Caribbean that started making a mess of yards in Miami-Dade County three years ago has appeared in Southwest Florida. The rugose spiraling whitefly is spreading fast throughout Florida and expanding its appetite for a variety of tropical landscape plants. The pests -- three times larger than the tiny whiteflies that attack backyard vegetable gardens -- feast on gumbo limbo, coconut palms, avocado, calophyllum and black olive trees. They also like bird of paradise, banana and mango plants. Despite their foreign palate, the bugs have rapidly broadened their diet to include a taste for more than 50 species of plants in Florida. The bugs weaken plants they infest. Worse...
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