McGroarty on Euonymus Scale (what??)

Here's our friend Mike McGroarty's answer to a question about the little white specs on your plants:

Many plants are prone to being attacked by Euonymus Scale. You know your plants have scale, or more specifically Euonymus Scale when you see little white specs on the underside of the leaves, and up and down the stems.

At first this scale doesn't show much damage to the plant, but after a period of time the plants become stunted and just perform poorly. To the point of becoming an eyesore in your landscape.

The little white specs that you see are actually a protective armor that these scale insects build to protect themselves. Really it's a bunker of sorts. The scale insects live under the bunker, sucking the nutrients out of the plants leaves and stems.

Because of the protective bunker they are difficult to control or eradicate. In most cases I just tell people to dig out the plants and throw them away if the infestation is very heavy.

Thanks, Mike!