Depending on how many there are, they can be very destructive. Last summer all of the celandine poppies that have naturalized at the edges of the beds and borders here were inundated with whiteflies. These aren't an important plant for me, but nevertheless, I paniced seeing literally millions, tens of millions of whiteflies on the poppies. Then I sprayed a bunch with soapy water, hung some yellow sticky traps which killed some but there were far too many. Realizing the whiteflies only cared about the poppies, I stopped doing anything but seeing what would happen next. Whiteflies suck the juices from plants and leave a sticky residue turning the leaves brown. None of the plants died as a result, but looked really sickly. I'm wondering if they'll come back this summer. I did a search and found this site explaining whitefly problems. Here is a link that might be useful: ucdavis

Yeah, I just don't know either. They said in 'slight' concentrations. And the zep is concentrated. So maybe it is actually 50 parts water to 1 part zep for one and perhaps 25 water to one part zep for another concentrate. 50/50 seems like a strong mix since the zep is quite concentrated to begin with. Oh shoot, I don't know, but I'm going to give it a try if/when the flies show up again. I'll start with a very diluted mix and take it from there. For now the "flies" are gone...again. I used some Safer Soap first and then washed all the leaves and stems with a weak solution of dish det. and water...then brought the plant inside. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the flies didn't come in with the EE. It looked very clean when I brought it in a couple days ago. So far, so good. No signs of the flies yet. Over the Summer I had used the insecticide and the Safer Soap but the darn flies would always return in a few days. Ah well, time will tell. :) Thanks for your responses, John. Linda

This cannot be a new thing. I too have a one year old vine, no fruit, lots of vine and millions of those very, very small flying insects. Shake the plant and these things swam out like some kind of plague -- but try to find them on the underside of the leaves -- they are not impossible to see but if they do not move you can miss them, unless they fly, then they are truly evident. Also, the leaves now have brown blotches all over them and some are skeletal -- not sure these flies or whatever, are the cause but there are so many that they cannot be beneficial. But, no one seems to have and answer, like this is something unusual. Strange, no one seems to have a solid answer?

Plant Society Garlic and you won't have the problem. It's a beautiful addition to any garden and the blooms are quite pretty. If you brush up against it you will smell garlic. Someone also told me they plant it near their roses and it seems to keep bugs away from them! I have not had white flies in years!