Bonsai Scale Insect Infestation

Foreign I'm going to talk a little bit today About scale insect not many people Understand what scale is so if you come Close I will show you what scale this is A Japanese you Texas Cosby data which Came from Japan it's a 200 year old tree Look at it it's so old and if I just Brush it you see the white stuff falling Out like dandruff if you come close Look at these branches all covered with That white it's like dandruff and this Is a type of scale that infects Japanese Use They don't seem to host on English you But Japanese you are particularly prone To this so this whole tree is covered With that So what I will do is I can spray it You can get one of these proprietary Space I'm not going to show the brand But you can buy them in garden centers They're already mixed sprays and just Spray it with that And it should deal with it different Types of sprays have different efficacy Or different strengths so you've got to Be quite persistent in doing it if at First it doesn't work then you've got to Keep doing it again again if you look at This the whole tree is covered all the Branches Have got it so what has to just keep Looking around

So on a large Nursery like this you've Got to be ever so careful because if you Don't watch it and get spread to other Parts we also have other chemicals these Are commercial chemicals which you use And this we use for Our intelligence and other insect pests And you can also use a spray like this You can have a little comforting And then spray it With that Make sure you mix the strength of the Chemical correctly Nowadays I don't think that many Chemicals that you buy that you have to Mix It's only the commercial ones that you Have to mix I'm now going to show you A customers tree If you follow me We have customers who leave that trees With us And they left it with us because this Particular you is a beautiful uh Japanese you if you come close you'll See the leaves there are many types of Japanese you the one I showed you has Large leaves but this one has got the Very tiny leaves it's almost like a Piece here and this is what they call a Yatsubusa type so if you look at it Again closely I have had this for 18 weeks or 20 weeks

And this tree was covered in scale I got Rid of most of the scale but you can Still see that there's still scale Around And because this is a custom history and They want to have this tree back what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a Toothbrush and with the toothbrush I'm Going to try and take most of this off With the toothbrush Tedious task But at least you get the bulk of it off If it's just your own tree I think most Damages if they have just a few trees They can deal with it easily But if you have hundreds of trees it's Not so easy to go through 100 trees Brushing every little twig For scale it does work because you can Take off every single piece of scale That you can find on the tree So what happens if you don't deal with The scale The scale as you know is an insect like A diligence and all these insect pests They do a lot of harm and damage to the Plants because they suck the sap And you don't want it sucking the sap So I will literally go around And just look at the scale on my hand it Sticks to the fingers as well So this is what I have to do Every single twig and branch

See they always hide on the underside of The leaves And then after that I will take a jet of Water and Jet the whole thing off So this is how you deal with scale you Can even use a bit of detergent Detergent doesn't really hurt the plants You know any of the washing up liquids Is fine Literally go through every single trig And scrub it And then after that Spray again with a chemical one of these Insecticides Just to make sure that all the eggs or Whatever Don't persist So that is how you deal with Insect pests I would also mention that Junipers are very prone to scales you've Got to deal with junipers in the same Way this is also a customer's tree but This Juniper is completely clear this Never had scale So I want us to keep watching the plants To make sure they don't Suffer from skin So I hope you've learned a little bit About this so always check the plants to Make sure that they don't get Infested By scale while I have the camera on I Will just walk you through some of the Plants I'm going to do a separate video about

The yellowing of the pine needles And the Japanese White Pine or the five Needed Pine is notorious for having the Autumn needles turn yellow like this As I've always said ever since I ran the Nursery 37 years ago In the Autumn this is almost the third Week in September from September onwards I get phone calls you won't believe it About three to ten phone calls a day Saying my white pine is turning yellow Is the tree die no it's not dying at This time of the year in the Autumn time All the five needle Pines lose the Needles so when you see yellow needles Like this for goodness sake please don't Think that the pine is dying they're Just shedding their needles if you go Into the fourth floor of any Pine Forest What do you find on the floor what pine Needles so pine needles is a normal Occurrence you see the needles at the Bottom of the shoots that means they are The old needles the new needles are fine The current chest needles or two-year Needles are fine usually it's the second Or possibly the third year needle Certainly the third year needles which Are shed so you just got to clean it and The whole thing should be okay the Scotch points don't seem to suffer that Much this is the only Scots pipe they do Get a few yellow needles but certainly Not as many as you would find on the

Japanese five needle Pine or white pine So while we're here again let's look Through look at my tried milk was Turning Lovely Autumn color They are only troubled by I would say the aphids in the spring but Apart from that they don't suffer much This is Cedar of Lebanon they are fairly Trouble free don't they don't seem to Get many pests Korean hornbeam also Don't suffer from many pets European Home beams certainly don't have many Pests again this is a mighty old white Pine which I'm still working on Um this one again look at the yellow Needles they have to be cleaned and if We look closely Okay it doesn't seem to have a diligence But intelligence is quite common on all The points especially Japanese white Pine Now this is a Scots pine a large Scotch Pine again all these old needles This is what we have to clean off I'm now going to show you some other Junipers that I have these are not young I've had them about 10 years here there Are junipers that I'm training on it's Some other form of Junior Powers tool That it could be a type of Sabina Juniper and if you look closely It is riddled with scale so as I say Scale is what we call endemic certain

Plants are prone to this insect pest so This one is covered in uh this scale Inside Juniper scale so I'll have to Spray these very uh heavily to get rid Of the fats all of them are suffered see They're all covered in scale All covered in scale so this is Juniper Scale but it's only this variety that Catches it I don't know why other Varieties are completely free of this Problem so do watch out for pests Because they can damage the plant and You have to take care of it it's all Part of the care of bonsai [Music] Thank you