by Leslie Cox; Saturday; February 14, 2020

Some breaks in the weather this week enticed us out into the garden. The weatherman had promised there would be no rain on Tuesday or Wednesday so we mixed up a batch of horticultural oil in the pump sprayer. Time to treat the camellia for its cottony camellia scale, (Pulvinaria floccifera), infestation. But it took two fill-ups…a total of 8 L (2.1 gal) to spray the entire (we hope) camellia shrub.

Unfortunately, the clouds started to pile up later in the afternoon and looked like they were going to drop some moisture. Not good for the treated camellia because the oil needed a minimum of 24 hours of no rain to work its magic on the scale pests.

Out came the ladder, the tarp, the extend-a-pole and some pieces of lumber. John suited up in full rain gear, including his Miner Black Diamond rain hat. You know the type…it has a sou’wester look to it and it really suits John to a ‘T’.

A bit of a struggle but we finally managed to drape the whole camellia with the tarp and roughly secure it by laying the pieces of wood and lumber across that corner of the grape arbour.

You guessed it! The grape arbour was built over the camellia but only because the arbour would have looked funny ending it short of the corner of the house. And at roughly 55 years old, we were not about to try moving that camellia to another location…although we probably should. Tucked as it is so close to the house foundation and the concrete stairs, it is definitely not happy about its alkaline soil. But we always top dress the “floor” of our grape arbour with bark mulch…which is mainly fir…and that does help to slightly raise the soil acidity a little. But still not enough to suit the preferred requirements of the camellia, I am afraid.

Small wonder the camellia is a little stressed and why the cottony camellia scale pest, Pulvinaria floccifera, has moved in. (For more information about cottony camellia scale, click here.)