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I have a windowsill lemon tree (a gift) and over the last 3 months or so have been trying to rid it of the scale insects that probably came with it (as eggs maybe) by religiously examining each leaf and stem every 3 or 4 days and removing any scale I see.
Each time I thought I'd conquered the problem, more appeared. They are very hard to find when tiny. It has four or five baby lemons on so I really wanted to save it if possible.
So.....finally decided on commercial warfare as a last resort, prior to consigning it to the compost. After much searching among the toxic products in the pesticide area of the garden centre I found a natural spray, basically rapeseed oil and water emulsified together which smothers the little beggars. It works! After 3 dousings at 2 day intervals - you have to drench the entire plant in spray, both sides of leaves and all the stems too - I have found no new scale, and the tiny ones that were on the plant are definitely dead, they drop off at a touch.
Happy mothhawk!
Each time I thought I'd conquered the problem, more appeared. They are very hard to find when tiny. It has four or five baby lemons on so I really wanted to save it if possible.
So.....finally decided on commercial warfare as a last resort, prior to consigning it to the compost. After much searching among the toxic products in the pesticide area of the garden centre I found a natural spray, basically rapeseed oil and water emulsified together which smothers the little beggars. It works! After 3 dousings at 2 day intervals - you have to drench the entire plant in spray, both sides of leaves and all the stems too - I have found no new scale, and the tiny ones that were on the plant are definitely dead, they drop off at a touch.
Happy mothhawk!
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