Describe the scale or supply a picture? It's very common for growers to mistake some parts of the anatomy of plants in the Ficus genus for pests. Is the floor around the plant sticky?

I'm not at all convinced fish emulsion is a dependable remedy for scale. I tried it several times on 2 pines that had pine scale and the issue continued to worsen until I sprayed with Bayer Advanced 3-in-1 for Insects, Mites, and Disease. I would A) do what's needed to move the plant outdoors and spray with the Bayer product, B) move the plant outdoors and spray with a horticultural oil labled Summer, Light, All-Season, or Perfect, C) drench the soil with an Imidicloprid solution where the tree is sited .............. but I wouldn't do any of these things unless I had positively identified the pests as an infestation of scale.

Al

i use cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol to wipe them off with.

Do you know how long that would take me on a 7' tree? My tree has hundreds, if not, thousands of leaves.

Also, I do not use pesticides that have toxicity for me or my pets. Imidacloprid has done a number on bees and I will not use anything by Bayer.

I guess you're in a pickle then.

Best luck to you.

Al

What all is trying to say is that it might just be best to throw it away. I find they rarely kill ficus but severely weaken it and they are almost possible to eliminate them. I'm sorry if I sound stark.....

I have a similar problem but the tiny white dots on my plant don't look exactly like the leaf pictured. They're all over the selected leaves but even with a jeweler's loup, they look like a dried deposit the size of the period(.) on tthis page. I've seen nothing that looks alive. I have sprayed two smaller cuttings I made, that are now separate from the parent plant, with the Bayer product you mentioned but the dots were back in a couple of weeks. The large tree is too big and heavy for me to move. I'm 74 years old and have had a stroke so I wouldn't try to move it outside. Thanks, Charles

Fish emulsion works! My ficus is back in a big way!

CC - An image would be helpful if you can supply one.

If your 'white dots' are fairly regularly spaced, relatively equidistant from leaf margins, and arranged roughly in a line, they're normal inclusions - a prevalent part of the Ficus anatomy. Often misidentified as glands or evidence of pest activity, they are actually lithocysts (enlarged epidermal cells) that contain crystals of calcium carbonate or calcium oxylate called cystoliths (cell rocks) - fish emulsion won't remove them.

If my description doesn't fit and you can eliminate lithocysts/ cystoliths as what you're describing, see my opening comment.

Al

Dave, Super obvious to me presently, but not at the time. My problem now is so much of the soil has come out of the bottom that there is hardly any soil left in the pot. I need to lift the plant up and somehow get soil to trickle down under the roots. Any suggestions?