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I am new to gardening and bought a place with a lovely garden including perimeter fence covered by bush, trees and foliage. Due to lack of my ignorance and lack of knowledge it has become infested with scale and I have lost a lot of the branches. We have cut back the trees and they are really bare in the section in line with the fence. Higher up there are leaves etc… Will the trees recover? It’s sad to see the state of them now. I wish I’d realised what it was sooner.
Hi @RachSyd,
There are plenty of options in those articles I linked above from one of our horticultural experts. I apologise, as I presumed you would be removing the current damaged plants to re-plant the area. If you're not removing the plants, where will this new fast-growing foliage be planted? Amongst the current plants? Perhaps you might like to post some photos of the areas so our helpful members can better understand what you're working with. A concern I would have if you're leaving these plants is that you'll need to get the scale under control before you consider planting more vegetation. Scale attacks a huge range of plants. There are some scale-resistant plants, but if they are planted among other infested plants, they are just as likely to become damaged.
Although ladybugs are predatory insects, you won't be able to introduce enough to control a scale outbreak effectively. Most of them will leave your garden, and the remaining might feed on some of the scale, but that won't be anywhere near as effective as consistently spraying with horticultural oil.
Mitchell
Eco oil is not registered for the control of white scale on ornamentals @RachSyd. I would imagine it would work, but there are no details of application rates on the packaging, unlike the white oil. The key will be continuing to apply the oil every two weeks until the scale is under control. Please note that the scale will not change after your treatments and will remain on the plants. So, just because it's not disappearing doesn't mean the treatment isn't working. The indicator will be no new scale appearing. Remember that the scale needs to be covered with the oil, so you need to saturate the plants until the oil runs off them.
Mitchell
Thanks, it does say this on the eco oil website - see photo.
Can you send me the link of to product I need to use. A spray gun will not be sufficient, the area is large.
You have the reference to black scale on olives. I might be missing it, but I can't find a reference to white scale on ornamentals. As mentioned, that doesn't mean it won't work, just that the product isn't registered for that use, so I can't recommend it. Perhaps @mich1972 or @Noelle can confirm whether Eco oil is suitable for the treatment of scales.
Sorry, I popped the links in for the products and sprayer earlier. I'd recommend picking up a white oil concentrate and mixing it up into a garden sprayer.
Mitchell
That would be in reference to the first column that specifies that it's talking about black scale on olives. It would need to say white wax scale (or scales in general) on ornamentals to be registered for that purpose. I apologise, as it likely sounds like I'm arguing semantics, but it needs to mention the exact pest on the correct plants for me to be able to recommend it for that use.
The Yates Pest Oil would also be a suitable product as it mentions scale on ornamentals.
Mitchell
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