I liked this plant's foliage for some reason, so I planted one a few years ago. It had a bit of a white scale bug problem, but after spr...Read Moreaying it with acephate it seemed to go away. The shrub did well in full sun here in zone 9A. Having recently grown non-fond of Burford-esque hollies, I decided to plant a native species in its place, under one condition: If I turned some of the Carissa's leaves over and found scale bugs. Sure enough, I found an infestation of thousands. Hence I yanked the plant out. I think a good way to cut down on scale bugs would be to prune it to allow more air movement through the leaves, especially in such a humid & rainy climate as mine here in Louisiana. Home Depot was pushing these plants pretty hard around here the last 2 years or so, but they seem to have stopped. Maybe it just wasn't popular enough. Overall, I'd recommend a dwarf yaupon holly variety instead of Carissa.
I liked this plant's foliage for some reason, so I planted one a few years ago. It had a bit of a white scale bug problem, but after spr...Read More