On Thu, 24 May 2007 20:03:46 -0500, jangchub wrote:

Use different plants. When you do the same thing over and over
expecting a different result, you will always be dissatisfied.
Euonymus is famous for scale infestation and I assure you the
continuation of scale will long outlive you or any number of the same
plants you keep planting. Try something native to your area. Odds
are the plant will be superior in habit than any introduced,
non-native.

I'm not sure as to the exact species/cultivar name of the Euonymus-- but I
planted three of them as a small child (sub-10 years old, I would think)-- two
of the ones called "yellow tip" and one called "red tip" by the relative that
gave them to me, and what I've always heard them called locally. I tried
googling up more precise names but with ambigious results. "Yellow tip" number
1 lived maybe 15-20 years, and reached about 10 feet before it died. The "red
tip" is still alive and well and around 30-40 feet tall (as are other large "red
tips" in the area. The second "yellow tip" I-- as a child not knowing any
better-- planted too close to the "red tip" so that it was always shaded and
deprived of water and dwarfed. But it lived. And is still alive today 20-25
years after I planted it. Last year, I noticed lots of new "yellow tips"
growing around the "red tip" that apparently grew off of runners from that
original dwarfed "yellow tip". Those offshoots are what I moved to different
parts of the yard and what are having the problems.

Now, the scale IS a big problem, but having the plants live from 15 to 25 years
before developing that problem does not make the plantings an unmitigated
failure as you are implying. If they can survive that long, I don't see why
they can't live another 15 or 25 years if I treat the scale that is attacking
them now. So please, if anyone has any pest control tips that are actually
usefull instead of borderline trolling, I'd love to hear them.

Zone, BTW, is 7 in South Carolina.