MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Just over a month ago, Miami Beach Botanical Garden was home to over 2,000 colorful, water-trapping bromeliads, some featuring red flowers that burst like fireworks from dark green spirals. Identified as breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry Zika, they've all been pulled out, leaving shallow depressions in flower beds and exposing irrigation lines.
Walking through the quiet haven in South Beach recently, executive director Sandy Shapiro pointed to where spiky yellow leaves once topped a block of stone at the entrance gate and where thick leaves with purple speckles would have served as camouflage for a 3-foot iguana sunbathing at the edge of a small pool. Only mulch fills those spaces now.
"It's been disastrous," Shapiro said at a meeting she hosted Sept. 20 to calm gardeners and growers angry about recommendations to uproot bromeliads to stop the spread of Zika.
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