How to deal with the scale insects on the sweet osmanthus

When your petals are infested with bugs and become really ugly, how do you save it?

1. Reasonable pruning and pruning

Scale insects usually gather on the branches of plants, so the plants need to be pruned in winter.

Shorten branches that grow too vigorously, reduce the density between branches and leaves, improve ventilation and light conditions, and reduce the occurrence of scale insects.

Prune off branches that have scale insects to reduce the density of the insects. All cut branches should be burned regardless of whether they are infested with insects or not.

After pruning, it is necessary to strengthen water and fertilizer management to promote the growth of new branches and restore the plant to normal state.

2. Scrape off the insect body

In the early stages of an infestation, you can manually remove the pests by scraping them off directly with bamboo strips. During the operation, do not puncture the leaves, which will affect the growth of the plant.

3. Protect and release natural enemy insects

This method is not suitable for home pest control. But if you can really catch one or two, you're still worth a try.

The natural enemy of scale insects is ladybugs, such as the Australian ladybug and the big red ladybug, which are very effective biological control methods. You can also catch ladybugs and place them in potted plants at home, it will still be effective!

4. Chemical control

In the early stage of the disease, when insect eggs just appear, you can directly spray the contact killer.

When the pest is serious, you can spray it with a 1500 times solution of omethoate emulsifiable concentrate, once every 5 to 7 days, and it will be effective after 1 to 2 times.