I have a pretty darned huge container garden of roughly 130 pots and have been growing it for 4 years now. All has been well with no infestations of insects or anything truly horrible. I've had infestations of crab spiders, but spider webs are normal here in South Texas and they do help keep down the baddies by eating them when they come around, so I leave those critters be.

This spring however has brought me something new. I had someone send me some plants from California, and now I'm wondering if I may have a "larger than I ever dreamed of" problem brewing. My plants all have this "spider webby" stuff all over them. I keep inspecting them, but I don't see any cocoons or anything on the bottoms of leaves or along stems, etc. I've noticed a flux of these really colorful, metallic looking flies everywhere. They aren't tiny, but they aren't horseflies either. If I had to judge their size, I would say just shy of a common housefly. Are these two things, the webby stuff and the flies, related, and if so, is anyone familiar with what I might have to do to get rid of them?

I'll try to get some photos up, but close up photography and my current camera don't really seem to go together.

Thanks in advance...

Okay, I DID get some photos. For some reason the webs just couldn't capture on my camera, but they are on everything, including my Plumeria, between the leaf stems. I caught some on my Hibiscus, but what's happening on the Plumeria is the silk strands are running in between the leaf stems. There doesn't seem to be any build up of silk or cocoons anywhere on the Plumeria, but there obviously IS on the Hibiscus, which I didn't notice as much until I took these photos. Now, this looks like a bad infestation, but most of the leaves look nothing like this...this is fairly new to the garden. Notice the fly...there are quite a few of these buzzing around, and they aren't something I normally see. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.