When a couple of leaves on my jasmine sambac turned yellow today, I googled some possible causes. I was shocked to read an article about scale and the effects they have!

I was even more surprised to read that scale is/are bugs that attach themselves to the bottom of leaves and turn hard while sucking the life out of the leaves.

Then I remembered that several leaves of my jasmine have been speckled with tiny dark pigments on the underside but I never suspected anything.

In fact, I remember seeing tiny bumps that seemed strangely attached to the underside of the leaves, which I tried removing with my fingernail.

I saw this on several of the leaves but never connected the dots. After reading the article and seeing the pics, I confirmed the findings and realized that it was truly scale attacking my plant.

I had previously thrown out a gardenia that I bought, along with this one and a 3rd plant. It too was infested with bugs and was sick. I had to throw it out, it had mealybugs and come to think of it, scale.

I never knew what scale was and never bothered to look at some pics.

I took no chances and sprayed both plants with insecticidal soaps to be on the safe side.

Thats the last time I'm buying plants from the internet, its safer to buy from nurseries.