Last year I had a beautiful umbrella plant that became totally infested with scale in a short period of time. I sprayed, swabbed with alcohol, discarded leaves - but eventually cut the plant down to a few short stems. I really didn't expect it to live, but it is coming back quite vigorously and thankfully with no sign of scale. However - I also have a False Arelia which I have nursed from a 2 inch seedling a few years ago to quite a pretty plant and which has always been trouble free & healthy. Watering it tonight I discovered scale on the lower leaves! It isn't a large infestation and I am sure I can catch this one in time, but I am curious - these infected plants were in different parts of the house and different climatic conditions with no contact with each other - how did they get the scale in the first place? I'm getting paranoid in case my other plants are going to get infested too.
Well, you can read about scale here from the UC Integrated Pest Management program. I also wonder how some of these insects managed to move about (a topic only alluded to by that link).
