"Chris Boulby" wrote in message
...
snip
Apart from the scale insects, especially if pot grown, they can succumb
to
vine weevil.

I guess you would have to remove the plant from the pot (assuming potted)
and examine the roots.

If there aren't any, then this is probably your problem :-(

If the roots are healthy then repot and look for 'sucking' pests.

However scale insect should not kill a bay - bad feeding/watering is the
thing that normally kills them.

Vine weevils don't create sooty, or sticky deposits on the leaves. The
symptoms suggest scale.

Agreed.

However it seems unlikely (from my experience) that a scale infestation
which is not immediately obvious could be having such a drastic effect on
the tree.

I am therefore suggesting that the presence of scale insects could be a 'red
herring' and the cause of the serious problems could lie elswhere.

The major damage to my small collection of bay trees in pots have been from
vine weevil (one tree), and forgetting to water in the summer (an offshoot
which had been repotted this year).

Although a couple have had major scale insect infestations this has not
shown any sign of reducing their vigour much, let alone killing them off.

I note from a subsequent post bt the OP that they have been brought in for
the winter.

IMHO this is more likely to cause problems - at least in mild Suffolk my
bays stay out all year round (as do the trees which are planted in the soil,
obviously). They are a remarkably hardy tree under most circumstances,
although slow growing.

Another benefit of leaving the trees out in the winter is that frost should
kill off most of the scale insects.

So the tree may have a scale infestation, but this shouldn't kill it off.

Cheers

Dave R