AusBonsai

Hi!

Decided to sign up to this community since I have started taking an interest in bonsai. I own two little trees, however, one has started showing signs of some disease I think. I came back to my apartment after a few days and found that these white spots (which I thought was dust and dirt at first and simply tried washing them off before) had gotten worse.

The leaves show small white or brown dots and all of a sudden the branches have these odd lumps growing on them now. They are soft so if I get a cotton bud and brush them they fall off. Not sure what this is. Is it a fungal disease? Can anyone give me advice on how to save my little guy?

Unfortunately this is the one bonsai I am unsure what type it is (it was the only one I bought from Flower Power in Sydney. It had no tag to identify it.)

Let me know if these images work!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nOTc5u ... p=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fzs9Ip ... p=drivesdk

What you have is a sever infestation of scale. You can scrap them off by hand as they remove fairly easily. Or you can spray with neem oil, White oil, confidor, or a systemic bug killer. Any product that states scale on it will do the trick.You need to make sure you spray the whole tree including under the leaves, trunk, even leaving one scale will start the cycle again. You will need to spray and then respray in a couple of weeks. Not 100% sure I think your plant may be a Camellia of some sort. I’m sure others here will join in with their opinions.
Cheers
Kirky

Definitely scale as Kirky said. They're insects with a crusty "scale" coating and they generally stay in one place on the plant, sucking sap out. If you see ants climbing up one of your trees it's often an indication that it has scale; ants eat the honeydew that the scale insects produce, and the ants end up "farming" the scale by moving them around on the plant and protecting them from predators. Nature is pretty cool I reckon!

I generally squish the ones I see and then spray with neem oil. You can buy a product called Eco-Neem from the big green shed which I find works well for scale. It's meant to be harmless to non-sap-sucking insects (like bees!) but I think there's some research out now which disputes that, so best to spray during the late afternoon / evening when the bees have gone off to bed.

Hi Rach, and welcome. You'll find a lot of helpful people on this forum. They've helped me a lot, and often the answers are very quick to come back. Totally agree with Kirky and Greg, scale insects.
Your tree may be a raphiolepsis indica, but from what you've shown us it's a bit hard to tell. If you can post pictures of the whole tree and flowers if it has any it would help.
Cheers, Frank.

Thank you all for the help!!
I’ll start treating it right away. Thanks!
(Thankfully I actually have some eco-neem ready to use!)