hey welcome to GW .... first.. see link next.. is your product labeled for monthly use?? and that aside.. the mature ones are impervious to any treatment with their waxy coating.. and you must ID when the babes crawl out and are susceptible to the oil ... and that is once a year .. not monthly ... you are wasting product/money.. if nothing else ... third.. ants are usually around.. to 'milk' honeydew from whatever it is ... they are irrelevant to it all ... and the black is usually a mold as a result of the honeydew ... in other words.. get rid of the scale.. the ants will move on.. and sooner or later the mildew will go away ... the real problem.. is that the mature ones.. look no different if they are dead or alive.. just because you kill them.. doesnt mean they are going to disappear ... and frankly.. when it comes to this point.. i usually have a hard time 'looking' at them for years to come ... and it is then i think about cutting them down ... now i know nothing about this plant.. as i didnt even know it existed before your post ... but if it is like many hedges or flowering shrubs.. there is probably no reason you couldnt cut them to near ground level.. remove EVERYTHING.. treat the stumps for remnants of scale ... and within a few months.. just about have your hedge back .. since there is no insult to the root mass ... and in the meanwhile.. have removed 99.99% of the problem ... [i would burn it.. and find some satisfaction in sending them to the Elysian fields ...funeral pyre and all that ..]... hopefully you can find out if rejuvenation pruning' is an option with this plant .. good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

Breynia oblongifolia is very popular with Brown Pigeons. I haven't seen anything eat my lillypilles, though. I think that the problem with might be that our "bird-attracting" gardens have focussed heavily on nectar production. It's great to see native birds returning to gardens, but so far we get more nectar-eaters than anything else. The native fruit-eaters have retreated with the rainforest, and may not find their way back to the suburbs unless you are in an area where a goodly number of like-minded souls are providing food for them. We probably need more fruit varieties for year-round supply, too. There are lots of suitable garden species among the dry rainforest trees and shrubs. Bird-feeders are typically filled with seed, attracting a second range of birds. Occasionally we see people whose bird-feeders are filled daily with fresh fruit. I've seen koels come to these and have been told they attract a range of things but can't remember what. Getting balanced bird populations is something we native plant growers could work on. Trish

Gosh, it seems there's huge ecological restoration needed in your neighbourhood, blckrose. You've certainly described an environmental disaster zone of monumentous proportions. All of those factors you mention have had enormous negative impacts on native wildlife thereby causing many people to reach for the sprays because natural controls are no longer present. As you would be aware, Noisy Miners have proliferated because of the massive clearance of native understorey thereby creating their preferred open woodland conditions. You might also be aware that a number of communities are now conducting Indian Mynah eradication programmes in order to encourage the return of native woodland birds, many species of which are threatened but provide wonderful environmental services such as control of insect pests if given the chance. Cat controls are also slowly gathering pace but, of course, much more is needed if we are to have a cat-free, native wildlife restoration culture in Australia. So if we are to reduce the impact & cost of sprays in our environment then the issue needs to be tackled on a very broad, multi-pronged front, as you are perhaps implying, blckrose.

Yesterday I planted 12 Lilly Pilly "Backyard Bliss". Each plant is around 80-90cm tall and 50-60cm wide at the base, and I've planted them 77cm apart (weird number, I know, it was to distribute them evenly in the space). What I'd like to know is, what do I do now and in the future to get them to grow into a dense hedge? I'd like them to get to at least 2 to 2.5m tall and obviously to join together into a continuous wall of foliage. I've read about "tip pruning" to get denser growth, but I have no idea if or when I should be doing that. I also don't know if I need to put in stakes as they grow. In short, my knowledge pretty much stopped at fertilising and mulching! ;) Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Lindsay