We all want our gardens and plants to look their very best all year round, but sometimes ‘scales’ can hamper their beauty. They can make our lush green trees look dull and unhealthy and therefore, getting rid of them becomes absolutely necessary.
So the natural question arises ‘what are scales?’ and ‘how to get rid of scales on plants?’ This article extensively discusses ‘what scales are,’ ‘how to identify them?’, ‘their harms’, and provides solutions to help readers get rid of scales on their plants.
Scale infection in plants is caused by a specific type of insect known commonly as the scale insect. They infect plants by sucking away all the important nutrients that the plant stores in its stems and leaves, making the plant look withered and decaying.
The Scale insects are extremely tiny in size but are visible to the naked eye. They are usually round or oval. Scale insects have a hard outer shell that is scaly in nature and brown in color.
These insects typically attack the leaf joints and the underside of leaves. They thrive in warm conditions, so trees in tropical regions need special care. It is fairly easy to identify these insects once you know what they look like.
Scale infestation makes the plant look withered and unhealthy. It causes the leaves to lose their natural bright green color and become yellowish instead. It may also cause circular holes in leaves which eventually fall off.
Scale almost always appears in clusters. They lock themselves into place to penetrate the stem of the plant and start extracting the nutrients.
There are 2 main types of scale insects – armored scale and soft scale. Both of them are equally and severely invasive but might look a bit different from one another.
Armored scales are hard to scrape off, while soft scales excrete huge quantities of honeydew which causes black fungus to grow. Once you know what scale infestations look like, it will be easier to discover how to get rid of scales on plants.
Scale insects on plants can appear all of a sudden. The major causes that lead to a scale infestation are –
Scale infestations are mainly spread through crawlers, that is, the offsprings of the matured scale insects. Once they hatch out of their eggs, these crawlers separate from their parents in search of new feeding grounds.
They usually attack the nearest plants and are barely visible to the naked eye. When they mature, they start feeding on the plants and cause the plant to deteriorate.
Once your plant gets infected with scales, you need to know how to get rid of them if you wish to save your plant. Here are some methods that tell you how to kill scale on plants:
Since oils do not mix with water, you can consider adding just a spoonful of dish-detergent that acts as an emulsifier. Try spraying the oils with a wide-mouthed hose as it will cover more surface area.
These tips will aid you in figuring out how to get rid of Scales on plants that grow outdoors.
Wondering how to get rid of scale bugs from indoor plants? Removing scale from indoor plants is not vastly different from removing them from outdoor plants. However, one must be extra cautious with indoor plants because they lie close to each other. One effective way of avoiding a widespread scale infestation is to check the plants regularly for scales and keep them clean.
Once you spot a scale infestation on a plant, immediately separate it from the healthy plants. If the insects have infected only a small portion of the plant, consider pruning it and disposing the branches.
If the infestation has engulfed the entire plant, applying rubbing alcohol solution will immediately kill the insects. Some indoor plants are sensitive to alcohol. Therefore, we should always test out a small region of the plant first to see if the treatment is affecting the plant.
If it is, then you can consider more natural remedies like applying Neem Oil solution or Horticultural oils to save the plant.
Apart from knowing how to kill scale on plants, there are also several ways of preventing a scale infestation from happening on your plant. Let’s have a look at some of them:
It will repel all sorts of scale infestations even before they affect your plant. It also won’t harm your plant.
Now that we have answered ‘how to kill scale on plants’ we need to understand what necessary precautions to take while removing scales. These precautions are fundamental while figuring out ‘how to treat scale bugs.’
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Ans: Scale infestation spreads rapidly on indoor plants because they lie close to each other. This can be prevented by moving the healthy houseplants away from the infected ones as soon as you spot a scale insect. To get rid of scale infestation, rubbing the underside of the leaves and leaf joints with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol solution is advisable.
Ans: Scale bugs do not live on soil. They only live on plants to extract their food from the plants.
Ans: Scale bugs can barely fly. Some male scale bugs have wings but can fly very low for a very short span of time, but they can spread very fast with the help of crawlers.
Ans: Scale infestation can spread rapidly from one plant to another after the crawlers or nymphs are born. It takes about one to three weeks for a crawler to mature into an adult and start affecting the plant.
Ans: We have already stated that scale insects prefer living in warmer conditions, but it does not mean that cold weather kills them. Scale insects can survive in fairly cold conditions.
Ans: Whatever insects you scrape off will not get back on your plant, but it must be noted that Scale insects breed on plants.
Therefore, even if you scrape off the insects visible to the naked eye, tiny nymphs known as crawlers might still cling on and infect your plant. Hence, the next time someone asks ‘how to remove scale from plants?’ you know that scraping off the insects is not the most effective solution.
Ans: Scale bugs feed on all kinds of plants, but some of their preferred plants are fruiting plants that bear citrus fruits like Lemon, Olives, Oranges, etc. Other types of scale insects prefer flowering plants like roses and lilies. Remember, Scales can affect any sort of plant irrespective of its type.
Ans: Scale insects are able to reproduce under any condition. However, warm and sultry conditions can act as a catalyst to the process of reproduction among scale insects.
Ans: When scale insects attach themselves to a particular plant, they pierce into the softer part of the plants’ stems (usually the underside of the leaves or leaf joints).
The insects then extract all the nutrients that are being transferred from the roots of the plants to their leaves. This deprives the leaves of the necessary nutrients.
Therefore the leaf fades and becomes yellowish. The plant that does not receive any nutrients now shrivels up and loses most of its leaves. It becomes patchy, brownish and can eventually die.
Ans: Scaled insects do not live or breed in carpeting inside a house. They always live on indoor and outdoor plants in order to suck the sap of those plants.
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This article has extensively discussed and answered questions like ‘how to remove scale from plants?’ Having this knowledge is instrumental to possessing healthy plants and a beautiful garden. Knowing how to kill scale on plants and how to treat scale bugs will help you to take care of your plants better than ever before.
However, if the situation is beyond repair, do take professional help.