We've mentioned a few times before that we're Novice gardeners (notice the capital "N"?). The previous owners of our little house were kind enough to leave us some fruit trees, but they didn't do such a hot job taking care of them. Little by little we're doing our best to make them happier. Last weekend we did some pruning and this weekend we got a diagnosis for our abundant but dirty tangerine tree.
Scale! We got the scale! Crawly tiny little brown pod-like things COVERING the poor tree. Actually, they don't move but they look like teeny brown moles covering the branches and leave a sooty dirt all over the tree's waxy green leaves.
We took a trip to the nursery to chat it up with the experts. After a quick diagnosis they pointed us towards an organic oil spray that's made up of clove oil, sesame oil and thyme oil. We clicked it on our hose and drenched the heck out those nasty little nuggets. We'll have to wait to see if it worked but for now our backyard smells like pomanders and grandmothers.
Make sure that you spray your trees in the early evening so that the leaves don't burn in the hot sunlight. We'll report back with the scale status in the near future. In the meantime we can still enjoy the tangerines because Green Light Organics spray is organic and natural...no chemicals.
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Another horticultural oil is Ultra Fine made by Sunspray.
http://www.berkeleyhort.com/roses/r_oils.html
I've used it on my Sago palms and roses when they were invested with scale. Scale is hard to treat. It's not a one time deal. Horticultural oil must be applied weekly until the infestation is rid of.
view fastkat's profile
Yes, scale is quite difficult to get rid of, but I succeeded by spraying an infected orange tree once a month until I saw no more signs of it. I used a horticultural oil as well. Scale can kill a tree, many trees, if left untreated.
Ants have a working relationship with scale and encourage the spread of it. To keep ants off of your tree, apply Tanglefoot around the trunk and prune branches away from walls and fences. Good luck, Shayna!
view wig3000's profile
i've dealt with scale on indoor plants. i had a huge white bird of paradise (that ubiquitous plant with large palms and no trunk?).
since i was spraying indoors and didn't want sticky oils and chemicals on my walls and floor, i sprayed the plant with rubbing alcohol.
after a time, it just wasn't worth getting up on a ladder and drenching the entire plant. in order to save the plant i would have had to have done this, at least, every other week.
i've moved onto a large pencil cactus (succulent).
view jeffnyc's profile
dear wig--
what is tanglefoot? I'm trying to have a working relationship with the many ants in my yard, but I do see them crawling my trees, especially the youngs ones and they seem to have attacked the roots of some smaller plants.
view jen_g's profile
This is what led to the death of my dwarf citrus that I was growing indoors and adored. Boo. It came from the nursery already infected, I'm 99% certain.
I've lost several other houseplants to it over the years so I knew it was probably a death knell.
view splatgirl's profile
Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I'll definitely make sure to keep up a spraying schedule....the nursery forgot to mention this seemingly key point. Going today to look for also tanglefoot as our tree is indeed home to many little ants. Thanks for the tips!
Shayna
view shayna r's profile
jen g, Tanglefoot is made from the sap of trees. It smells like pine trees. It is a bit of a nuisance to use as it is extremely sticky and difficult to remove from hands and clothes. I use surgical gloves when working with it. Essentially, Tanglefoot acts as a barrier so that ants and other pests can't get past it. Personally, I only use it on larger trees that've been threatened by scale.
view wig3000's profile