Gardenias With Light Brown Bugs

Scale Insects

• Scale insects come in two varieties: soft scales and armored scales. The armored scales resemble barnacles with their hard outer shells. The soft scales lack the shell, and are instead protected by a thick, waxy coating. Scale insects can be nearly any color, from white to green to brown. Adult scale insects move slowly, if at all, causing the armored scales to be confused with plant diseases.

Detecting Scale

• Scales are visible to the naked eye. The brown soft scale, a common gardenia pest, is approximately an eighth of an inch long and yellow-brown to green-brown in color. These scale insects are obvious when the undersides of leaves are examined. The appearance of sooty mold can also indicate scale infestation, since the mold lives on honeydew, an excretion of the scale insects.

Indoor Control

• Houseplants can be treated with pesticides, but it is generally not recommended if infestations are small. If your house gardenia has scale, begin by scratching or picking off the insects as you see them. If there are too many insects to pick them all off, try washing your plants with soapy water or smothering the insects with alcohol on the end of a swab.

Outdoor Control

• Scale insects are difficult to control with pesticides, owing to their protective coatings. They are much easier to kill with horticultural oils applied to dormant plants or systemic insecticides applied to the root systems of plants actively under attack. Imidacloprid is the current pesticide of choice for scale. It permeates plant tissue and is taken internally by scales during feeding.