gardenlen wrote:

with scale amd mealy you either have to pick them off or with mealies
using a cotton bud dipped in meth touch each bug, or cut the fern
right back and douse with a 1/4 rate mix of white oil, the worst with
mealies is if the ants colonise them on the roots of the plant it is
usually best to destry the plant, on plams i ahve manged to wash the
roots and all in a white oil mix but it realy knocks the plant about,
and not guranteed to be successful.

I'll have to look at the fern again, but it's been like this for years. It
grows strongly and well (in my experience all these boston/fishbone ferns
do). However, all my palm trees have over the years had the same thing, the
stickyness, the ants. I could see something on them and attacked it again
and again with white oil, but never got anywhere. Must have been in the
roots, like you say. bloody ants! I don't feel guilty using dead ant on them
now.
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