Apples & Scale

 ©Robin Edmundson, 'Apples & Scale', watercolor, 9x12 inches.

I've discovered how much fun a still life can be.  I love this crop where you have a sense of what the scene is, but the focus is just that one red apple in front.  

I took some heat for that from a few people in my critique group, but I stand by the decision.   You don't have to show everything.   

Sometimes a poem is just as powerful as a novel.

Tulip Tree Scale

Last year I noticed big shiny patches under some of our trees.   The shiny patches turned black and I figured it was some sort of blight.    I did a search and came up with nothing.   Over the winter, many of our small tulip trees died.  This year, it is widespread enough in the Midwest that it hit the news.

The blight is  Toumeyella liriodendri, Tulip poplar scale.

You may notice big dark wet looking patches along the roads under some trees.   If you walk on those patches they'll sound sticky.  

They are sticky.   It's honeydew, excreted in little droplets from the bodies of the scale insect. 

The honeydew looks like rain falling from the tree if you look at it from the right angle in the sunshine.  The lower leaves look very shiny.    Any cars parked under those trees will have little sticky dots all over them. 

In Indiana, black sooty mold feeds on the honeydew and it's common to see lower leaves, and the grass and plants under an infected tree turn black with this stuff. 

The scale is not new.   There are dozens of kinds of scale. [Who knew?]   It's all over the place all the time.   It spreads on birds, which is why it's everywhere in the first place.  The question is what allowed it get out of control? 

Turns out our mild winter didn't kill a lot of it and the dry weather has stressed and weakened the trees, which means there's more of it around and the trees aren't fighting it the way they usually do.

What can be done about it?    You can treat the trees with Neem oil or some other dormant oil, but that gets pricey and you'd need to be careful of all the other things that live on and around the tree. 

You can also make sure your trees are well watered and fertilized so that they're in a strong healthy condition.   The scale may get to them, but not kill them.   That's what we're going to do with the trees around the house. 

We will lose more of our trees in the woods.  Even the huge tulips look pretty bad.   There's not a lot we can do except pray for rain.

Firewood will be cheap for the next few years.  

Organic Insecticide

I have a few trees and things that I generally keep outside in giant pots during the summer, but have to move in during the winter.  

I have a bay tree, a meyer lemon tree, a patchouli, a couple of rosemaries and a lemon verbena.   

They spend the winter in the studio, in front of the big windows.  We keep it 55 degrees most of the time, so we don't have to water things much.   

This year they have aphids.

Just kill me now.

I hate aphids.

Then I found scale.  

Scale is a soft bodied little creature that sucks the juice out of your plants.   They multiply readily and can really cause problems for plants.  


There are two ways to get rid of these pests. 

1.   Pick them off by hand.   Effective, but time consuming and not much fun.
2.   Spray them with something.   Much faster, but most insecticides are nasty.   

Then I read a post on Caleb Warnock's blog about making organic pest spray.   He'd had aphids in his greenhouse this year and tried it and it worked.

So I tried it and it worked.  

Here's what you do:

• 1 onion
• 1 whole head of garlic
• 2 Tablespoons ground cayenne pepper
• hot water
• quart jar and lid

Peel the onion and the garlic.  You don't have to do it well. Chop the onion into big pieces.   Throw the onion, garlic and pepper into a blender with a cup or so of water so it blends easily.   Puree it all. 

Put it in the quart jar and fill it up with extra hot water so you have a full quart.   Let it sit overnight.  

The next day, strain it through a towel into a spray bottle.    Spray it on your plants. 

Note:  There is enough pepper in there to make my hands warm and tingle-y if I get it on myself.   Don't get it in your eyes!!  Wear gloves when using the spray if you are sensitive to it.