Use different plants. When you do the same thing over and over expecting a different result, you will always be dissatisfied. Euonymus is famous for scale infestation and I assure you the continuation of scale will long outlive you or any number of the same plants you keep planting. Try something native to your area. Odds are the plant will be superior in habit than any introduced, non-native.
I'm not sure as to the exact species/cultivar name of the Euonymus-- but I planted three of them as a small child (sub-10 years old, I would think)-- two of the ones called "yellow tip" and one called "red tip" by the relative that gave them to me, and what I've always heard them called locally. I tried googling up more precise names but with ambigious results. "Yellow tip" number
1 lived maybe 15-20 years, and reached about 10 feet before it died. The "red tip" is still alive and well and around 30-40 feet tall (as are other large "red tips" in the area. The second "yellow tip" I-- as a child not knowing any better-- planted too close to the "red tip" so that it was always shaded and deprived of water and dwarfed. But it lived. And is still alive today 20-25 years after I planted it. Last year, I noticed lots of new "yellow tips" growing around the "red tip" that apparently grew off of runners from that original dwarfed "yellow tip". Those offshoots are what I moved to different parts of the yard and what are having the problems.Now, the scale IS a big problem, but having the plants live from 15 to 25 years before developing that problem does not make the plantings an unmitigated failure as you are implying. If they can survive that long, I don't see why they can't live another 15 or 25 years if I treat the scale that is attacking them now. So please, if anyone has any pest control tips that are actually usefull instead of borderline trolling, I'd love to hear them.
Zone, BTW, is 7 in South Carolina.
I've had a lot of success getting rid of scale with neem oil. If you live where you are getting full hot sun during the day spray it in the late afternoon or early evening. I toasted some Vince with a bad infestation of white fly by soaking it down with neem oil in the early morning of what turned out to be a hot sunny day. I cut it back and it did come back......the white flies didn't however. I've used neem oil on both outdoor plants that had scale and on an indoor ficus tree that developed the nasty critters. Successfully got rid of all of them......the scale critters, not the plants.
I had nasturtiums last year that were covered with aphids and it only took one good soaking spray of the neem oil and the aphids were gone and never came back either. You can find this stuff pretty much anywhere they sell organic pest control. I use a product called Bio-Neem, 1Tbs to 2 qrts of water. I've tried other products that "contained neem oil" but they didn't work as well if at all. Probably because they were so diluted with who knows what. Read the labels and follow the directions.
Val
I used a systemic on my potted gardenia to get rid of scale. Insecticides and mitacides had no effect. Dosed the plant outdooors, where I keep it in warm months, and scale never came back. Frank
I gave you accurate, concise information. Take it or leave it. Like I said, if you keep asking often enough you will eventually hear what you want to hear and you are wasting time...your's, and ultimately worse, mine.
Learn the definition of troll. I do not fit that category.
A systemic insecticide will eradicate the scale, very effective. Before you buy read the label! For smaller infestations (such as with house plants) you can scrape off the scale with your fingernail.
Concise, I'll give you. Given that the plants have lived for many years before having the problems, though, I do not find your information of "hopeless quest, doomed failure, stupid for trying, give up now" to be either accurate or helpful.
Oh, and thanks to those with the tips on the Neem oil and systemic-- I'll look for both at a garden center today.
This is what I wrote, exactly:
Where in my original post did I mention:
"...hopeless quest, doomed failure, stupid for trying, give up now" to be either accurate or helpful."
So, what you did was take what I told you and turned it into something I never said. I just wasted precious time. Precious time. Do whatever you want. Eventually you'll get the answer you want to hear.
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