Episode 29: Simple Tips On Dealing With Scales On Plants

About This Episode

In this episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener advises a reader on dealing with scales on plants. Plus, Grumpy’s gripe of the week.

Question Of The Week:

"I have recurring scales on my camellias, palms, and Japanese magnolias. I've sprayed and sprayed but can't get rid of them. Please advise me what to do."

Grumpy Gardener Response: Scales, and there's lots of different kinds of these things, are insects that crawl up onto a plant, and they suck the sap out of the plant and release this sticky honeydew. Some scales, they look like little bumps on the side, sometimes they'll be on the leaf or they'll be on the stem, and you won't notice them. There are two types of scales, one is a soft scale, which has a soft body, like a mealy bug, and the other's called an armored scale. Armored scales are a little tougher to handle because when they attach themselves to the plant, they build this hard little shell over themselves and contact insecticides like you might use to kill other bugs like aphids or caterpillars. So you can't use them to fix this problem. If you've sprayed and sprayed and it hasn't worked, you're probably not using the right product. Two things I would recommend you try:

1. Horticultural oil, very available, very safe, just use it according to label directions. You want to spray all leaf surfaces and also all the stem surfaces, and what this does is it puts a layer of oil over the plant and it smothers the insects underneath it. It's very easy to do, and like I said, very safe.
2. If that doesn't take care of the problem, then we have to bump it up a notch, and you're going to have to use a systemic insecticide. And a systemic insecticide is one that's absorbed by the plant, and so when you have a sucking insect get on a plant, as soon as it sucks part of that sap, the sap is going to have the insecticide in it and it's going to kill the insect. One that you can use, is widely available, and easy to apply is called BioAdvanced Tree and Shrub Insect Killer and because it says tree and shrub doesn't mean you can't use it on other things. Just use it according to label directions. It's easy to apply, you water it in, the roots take it up, and it will kill anything that is feeding on the plant, like the scales.
   

Gripe Of The Week: Fishy Fertilizer

You know when you want to put fertilizer either on your lawn or you want to put it around your annuals, your perennials, your vegetables, whatever you're growing, a lot of people now are really into organics because they think that it's better for the environment and it doesn't get into the groundwater, and plants grow better with it. That's a little bit debatable. But the fact is a lot of people like to go organic because they feel it's better for the environment. You don't have to look if you don't care what it's going to smell like. But, look at the ingredients, because a lot of it is made out of animal parts. And, you know I've seen things have chicken feathers in it. And all this other kind of stuff, and one of the common ingredients that they use is fishmeal, which is made from grinding up fish. And so they grind it up and they dry it up into all these little granules, and you go and you spread it all over your yard, and then it rains. And let me tell you, the smell does not go away after six hours, it lasts for about 10 days.

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.