Whitefly

How to tell

• Adults are 1 to 2 mm and pure white, and they lift in a cloud when you brush the hedge.
• Turn a leaf over: the undersides carry white waxy spirals and immature stages.
• A black sooty mold grows on the sticky honeydew below, staining pavers, cars, and pool cages.
• Ficus hedges show thinning and leaf drop from the inside out.

Where you'll find it

• Ficus hedges and ficus trees, which take the worst of it in this region.
• Gumbo limbo, coconut palms, and other ornamentals.
• Anything parked or paved beneath an affected hedge.

Why it matters

Heavy whitefly pressure defoliates ficus hedges, and a mature privacy hedge is expensive to replace. The honeydew and sooty mold also stain hardscape, screen cages, and vehicles.

How Strike treats it

This is lawn and ornamental work. We identify the species, since treatment timing differs, then apply a systemic soil application at the root zone and a foliar treatment where numbers are high. Applications are timed to the plant's growth so the material moves where it is needed. Hedges under pressure are inspected on a recurring schedule through the growing season.

What you can do before we arrive

• Do not prune heavily right before treatment — new growth is where the material goes.
• Water the root zone the day before a soil application unless we say otherwise.
• Move vehicles out from under affected hedges.
• Point out which sections declined first.