What's up everyone? Welcome back to the Epic Gardening Podcast. Happy to have you here on Tuesday.

Today we are talking about white flies. I got this question from a reader and we are going to figure out what these things are, why they are so destructive,

and how again we can get rid of them,

using some organic techniques if you want to,

and also using some more extreme methods if you deem that to be necessary.

So the first question you have to answer is what exactly is a white fly?

So the Latin name, which I'll probably butcher is Trielarodes Vaparorum.

And what it does is it is a sap-sucking insect and often you'll find it in crowds.

So you won't find just one. You'll find many white flies usually on the undersides of your leaves.

Now this usually affects house plants and is often a pretty nasty greenhouse pest.

But probably for most of us listening,

it's going to be a house plant problem,

maybe some edibles if you are a bit unlucky.

So when you smack a plant that is infested with white flies, what you're going to happen

to see is that there's going to be a bunch of adults that fly into the air. And so that is a really good test to see if what you're suffering from, in fact, are

white flies instead of maybe some other pests that you're misidentifying. So what's happening

when white flies are infesting your plants are that the nymphs and the adults

suck the juice from new growth, which basically taxes your plants' growth systems and causes

stunted growth. So when it comes to house plants, growth and

when it comes to house plants that's just making ugly leaves, damaged leaves

and eventually destroying the plant

if they are left to their own devices.

...