Possible Scale Infestation - Gardenia/Mango

Hey everyone. I was walking my back yard yesterday evening, and I noticed that even though I treated my gardenia for caterpillars with thuricide and for slugs with sluggo, I noticed some holes in the new leaves. Upon inspecting the underside of some of the leaves (and some without holes), I noticed tiny "pod"-shaped "things" stuck to the underside of some of the leaves. Some leaves had several, others had only one. They were hard-ish in texture, and were round-ish shaped. It somewhat resembled scale upon further online research. For the heck of it, I checked my young mango julie dwarf tree, and on the underside of some of those leaves was something different. They were small sacks of what looked like tiny white eggs/critters that closely resembled spider-egg sacks. It didn't look like the "scale"-like critters I found on the gardenia, though since they're so close together in proximity, I wouldn't rule anything out. I do treat my julie dwarf mango tree with a copper sulfate fungicide to prevent antrhacnose.
I'm sorry that I don't have pics, but I plan on taking some tonight or this weekend. I read somewhere that 1 part rubbing alcohol, 5-6 parts water, and a squirt of antibacterial dish soap does the trick. Even if it's not scale, should this work on other pests? Will my plants be ok? Should I cover the ground below to protect the roots? Thanks!

it sounds like you've described hard scale and soft scale. you'll have to add some oil to the mix to kill the hard scale as it needs to be smothered but the soft scale should succumb to alcohol. this time of year is so bad for these kinds of pests and it's an ongoing battle for a next few months. the problem is that it is hot and oil will burn leaves and fruit in the sun so treating is a little tricky. if it's only a few leaves, i'd pick them off. examine the trunk and branches for hard scale. you can safely oil spray those. if it's not too advanced, get a can of generic pam and try spraying with that.

Fortunately the tree is too small to sustain fruit (the fruit became golf-ball sized before the weight broke the stem to which they were attached), so I didn't really let it grow mature fruit this year. I'm past its fruiting season, so I don't have to worry about the fruit. The tree itself is only 4' or less, so I'll probably go through the tree and clean them off by hand. The gardenia is made up of 5 separate bushes and forms a hedge-shaped shrub and is a bit larger and would require a lot more time to do this. I tried to scrape some of them off the mango last night and it was slow going. The sacs came apart very easily and you could see a bunch of tiny white eggs, or whatever they were. It could very well have been soft scale, but the gardenia definitely had the hard shells. Funny how they got two different varieties so close together. Just when I thought I was winning the battle with the snails, slugs, and caterpillars, something else pops up! I'll let you know how it goes - thanks again as always trackin!

you're welcome...just know that you are not alone! lol

my camellia gets tea scale at least once a year. i spray it with pam and let the leaves fall. in my personal experience, the soft scale is a lot harder to deal with. make sure you stay vigilant and always check under the leaves!

Update - I grossly overestimated the size of my mango tree; it's only 2' tall. Those julie dwarfs grow so slowly...
Anyways, I scratched all of the soft scale from the mango, and hard scale from the gardenia. I'll monitor to make sure they don't come back. Some of the hard scale on the gardenia were "mummies", where the organisms died below the "shell", and others were alive.
I also noticed another infestation on the buds of one of my hibiscus plants. They were small white bugs all over the buds of the flowers themselves, and weren't allowing them to mature and bloom. Is this mealy worm? It's just one thing after another lol...

Sounds more like white fly. The only way to control them is to kill them. Sevin liquid works pretty well, but no matter what you use, it will take 2 or 3 applications to get them all. They can absolutely ruin a hibiscus if left untreated. They love citrus also. They love hiding under the leaves.

I had a very bad fig whitefly infestation in my ficus hedges. They are attacking everything around here, and I was told they are a new strain that came from abroad and started south in Homestead/Miami area. I had to get a local company to treat them because there wasn't anything on the market that would do anything to them. Also, I have these hedges on 3 sides of my house so it would be a lot of work to do it myself. They are pretty much gone and I really only have 1 spot that got hit hard that is struggling to come back, but there is new growth on it. The rest are great.

Just what we need...resistant bugs...sheesh.

i read about that new strain of white fly......arghhhhh.

Yeah...I have neighbors whose ficus hedges are merely sticks against their wood fences. They look like skeletons, and will never regrow - too far gone. Eventually, the wood dies without photosynthesis from the leaves. It's really sad to see all of those hedges gone...

I kinda think the greatest sins in gardening are not looking at your plants with some kind of frequency, and ignoring or choosing to do nothing when a problem arises. JMHO

I agree. Unfortunately most of the hedges along my neighbors' properties fall on the easement owned by the HOA. It unfortunately fell into the category of whose responsibility it is to treat them, and neither caring enough to do anything about it before it was too late. Personally I think we should backcharge the landscaping crews off of whom the whiteflies hitch a ride.

Boy would that be an exercise in futility...grin. I love the "It's not MY job" mentality.....When white flies show up in my yard, I wind up spraying both of my neighbor's plants that are infested also..otherwise why bother to spray at all.

Yeah it's silly. Just because it's on the HOA easement, it doesn't mean you don't benefit from the hedges. They provide privacy, security, and beauty. Obviously the HOA isn't going to do anything about it. Defiance will just end you up with a skeleton hedge, and you're left with the ugly thing bordering your house, and I wonder who would have to R&R it? You!!

on a good note, if there is one, i think the new strain of white fly seems to prefer ficus to anything else (if i remember reading that right). of course, eventually they'll wipe out the ficus and move on to something else.

Yeah they touched nothing else but my ficus hedges. Fortunately I have no ficus trees, so they stopped at the hedges and left my other plants alone.

Fiddlesticks. One travelling storm and those little beggars will be in my yard. I have a few ficus trees. Just when I start getting a grip on them attacking citrus and hibiscus.