Scale insects are one of the most common and tenacious pest of ornamental plants. “Scales are tiny insects that appear ...

Scale insects can be difficult to identify. At a first glance, they look like small bumps on the stems of leaves of your plants, making them easy to mistake as part of the plant itself. But beneath ...

Spots on the leaves of plants in the home landscape can be an indication of a hazardous condition for commonly used shrubs. Armored scale is a class of insect pest found on many plants used in Leon ...

Many gardeners, as well as the horticulturists at the Chicago Botanic Garden, had issues with magnolia scale last year, and it’s a pest to watch closely for in 2025. The Garden’s plant health care ...

Spring beauty is fleeting, and so is the opportunity to stop scale insects that live on the bark of magnolia trees and suck their sap. “With scale insects, timing is everything,” said Sharon Yiesla, ...

I got an email with some pictures a few years ago asking me about magnolia scale, which is a topic I have written about for a number of years. I feel confident the insect was magnolia scale. The ...

Since they overwinter, you can scout for them at any time of the year. Carefully peel back the top coat of the scale to identify if it is still alive. Alive, they will be pink, orange or light ...

Magnolia scale (Neolecanium cornuparvum) is a soft scale insect that attacks only magnolia trees, including the popular star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) and saucer magnolia (Magnolia x soulangiana).

Above: lady beetles are being released into Purdue greenhouses as a biological control agent. Photo by Purdue University. Some insects are pests, but not all insects are bad. Overwhelmingly, the ...

You should have applied the most important insect spray of the year — dormant oil sprays — during the winter. Why then? Because that’s when insects susceptible to these sprays are most vulnerable. Why ...