Violets are blue. Make sure those exotic flowers aren t hiding a critter or two. Valentine s Day makes February one of the officers busiest months. These numbers can double during prime holidays like Valentine s Day. Flower shipments containing pests or diseases are treated, destroyed or sent back to their country of origin.
Culprits can include beetles, moths and butterflies.
But it makes sense to concentrate on plants that bugs like more. The three-month pilot program started Jan. 4. Pickhardt said it is difficult to trace invasive bugs back to their points of origin once they get into the United States, so she did not know of any incidents stemming from bugs in imported flowers. However, in the 1960s, three giant African snails carried over in a little boy s pocket were turned loose in a garden in Florida. Those three snails spawned 18,000 and ended up costing the government over a million dollars to eradicate them over a decade.