Scale insects on citrus trees - London

[veggiewomble]

I have had a couple of citrus trees in small 14" containers growing on my terrace in London for a few years now. Late last year I noticed some odd infestation on both plants - a sort of whitish cottony substance sticking to some branches as well as a black sooty residue on the leaves.

I've discovered that this is due to scale insect infestation.

I tried treating it with SB Plant Invigorator and Bug Spray as well as Growing Success Bug Killer from website recommendations. It doesn't seem to have controlled the infestation on the smaller tree that well as I still get the sooty residue appearing and I have to manually hunt down and destroy the cottony growths, and one tree has completely lost all its leaves and I am worried that it is dead. Growing citrus trees on a terrace in London has been a battle from start to finish. Can anyone give me any advice on how to save the remaining tree?? Thanks!

vegwomble

[starloc]

You could try provado bug killer ( get the concentrate and mix it with water it works better ), it works on scale but you cant eat any fruit thats on the tree now

Also another thing that works is a spray of 1 teaspoon per litre of neem oil ( with a tiny bit of dishwash liquid ) in water

Best way though is to dab each with a cotton bud with methylated spirits on, this kills them instantly.

I would go round with meths on a cotton bud, then soak the whole lot with provado bug killer, use a high pressure sprayer that you pump up and soak every bit of the plant inbetween branches and buds etc

Even though it looks like scale, it could also be mealy bugs, both look similar with the white goop, treat them both the same

If you want to...you could water the plant in the next watering with the provado bug killer, your suposed to not eat any fruit on the tree for 6 weeks , it goes through the plant and kills all the bugs, this is nornal practice in the commercial nurseries they `incoculate the tree` using a soil drench