In California at least there are both soft scale and armored scale. The soft scale can be controlled with a soapy spray pretty much anytime but the armored scape can only be controlled when they are in crawler stage which arrives here in San Jose in early spring. Then an oil spray smothers the crawlers. The University of California has a Pest Note on the topic with host plant lists and lots of great pictures to see if your scale are like any of these. http://ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/… Small birds like Bushtits are very good at getting rid of soft scale. Cheers, Bracey San Jose CA where just about everything is in beautiful bloom right now and where we don't have turtles and where thick tree-trimmings mulch and drip irrigation keep the snail/slug populations low. -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of chuck schwartz Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 5:25 PM To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: Re: [pbs] scale If you take vegetable oil or liquid soap (NOT DETERGENT) mixed with water and spray the plant with scale, you smother the scale and kill it. This is much quicker than hand picking and also completely organic chuck Schwartz