Gardening Question

[JenBayles]

I've got three 12-year old burford hollies and one of them started tanking last year. I've tried fertilizer, fungicide, insecticide (systemic and fast acting), organics, inorganics and the blasted thing just sits there dying a little more each day. I see no sign of scale, mites or aphids, but some of the leaves appear to have been somewhat chewed. The branches start shriveling and end up looking like they've been blasted in a furnace. I'm wondering about cotton root rot maybe? Nematodes? Help!

[alicia-w]

any leaf discoloration? Sounds like you may have "tea scale", a sap sucking insect that lives under scale like stuff on bark, stems, leaves, etc...
Recommend the following:

spray one of the following during crawler emergence periods and repeat at 10-day intervals for three treatments:


acephate (Orthene Turf, Tree, and Ornamental Spray) 1 T./gal. water

or

malathion 50% EC 1-1/2 to 2 T./gal. water

Do NOT use dimethoate.

[JenBayles]

At last! A reply! Thanks very much. I've looked all over those leaves and don't see anything that looks like scale. I thought the same thing at first. However, I'll give your treatment a try. Better than nothing, and I sure would hate to lose this shrub.

I had to chuckle when you mentioned malthion. I last used it out in the back 40 about 6 weeks after 9/11. Had a lot of standing water and tons of mosquitoes and West Nile virus was going crazy in our area. You know how bad malthion stinks right? Apparently the neighbors 2 blocks behind us panicked thinking it was a chemical attack. They called the police who showed up at my front door just as I was getting into the shower to rid myself of said stink!

[alicia-w]

That's pretty good.