Linnea, the most common method used to treat oyster shell scale insect is with rubbing alcohol which is applied in different ways. One is to use a Q-Tip, soaked in the alcohol and the bug is then touched. The alcohol eats through the hard shell and kills the bug. Each bug though must be touched to be effective. The other method is to treat the plant. In a quart spray bottle, put 20 oz water, one tablespoon of dishSOAP and 4 oz rubbing alcohol. This amounts to about a 2% solution. If you feel it might be too strong, double the amount of water/half the amount of the other. Take the plant out where you can spray indiscriminately and spray from top to bottom, bottom to top, ensuring all parts are covered. Wait ten minutes, then rinse wellw ith tepid water. Again, from top to bottom, bottom to top and let's not forget to treat the soil as well. That's where the children are. This method must be repeated 3 times in 20 days to break the cycle of the bug from egg, to larvae, to adult. Then constant vigil is needed. Another method is to use the dormant oil that is used outside in combo with lime sulfur. Most plant bugs can be treated with the soap and water without concern of damage as long as the soap is not left on the plant. Most bugs can be treated initially by simply hitting them with a stream of water.

I must chime in. I haven't had success with QV in zone 6 Pa, but if you are zone 7, and try in ground who knows? My effort was with a 5 footer I brought back from Florida. It was not use to anything cooler than zone 8B, so it was probably doomed from the start. Acorns I tried were all duds from ebay, not a one of them sprouted. You may have a shot in zone 7. I am trying Quercus Fusiformis now, it is zone 6 hardy, it survived 2 months of last winter. I hadn't purchased it until Jan or Feb 2011. It took a while to get leaves this year but it may need some patience because it came from Arizona into my zone 6 yard midwinter. If you fail at QV try Q. Fusiformis. It is slightly shorter than QV until very old but stretches out like southern live eventually. The bad thing about live oaks is if you get lots of snow and the weight on branches. Shingle oak leaves are lance shaped but bigger and Willow oak has skinny lance shaped but longer leaves than QV. The Shingle and Willow oaks are fully hardy and deciduous oaks. I can relate about Q V being special and wanting one in your yard, when you see them down south in their element they are like no other tree. I had heard that there is one in Central park, NYC but it may be the hardier Q Fusiformis. I think someone posted that on this site but not sure. Anyhoo, I would try it if I were in zone 7 for sure, I may still try again here with more northern acorns in a sheltered spot.One discouraging thing though is that on the web site of champion trees for each state has no champion QV trees north of coastal Virginia. Even coastal Pa doesn't have any listed. Temps are warmer now than decades ago when the champs would have been planted though, so who knows. If I hit the lottery for millions I would build a giant green house just so I could have a southern live oak, yes I'm a bit nutty about trees, they have one of those in Germany for a special tree but I can't remember the details, wish I could, I saw it years ago on the web.

Marathon and Merit are the same thing, as in they both have the same active ingredient, the stuff in Advantage flea killer. I "think" the difference between them is that one is "approved" for the "home gardener" and one is mainly for the professional grower. Both are supposedly costing an arm and a leg! Again I may be in error but I think that's what I remember. You can find, if you are very diligent in looking for it, a couple of products that have the same active ingredient. One I have read about is a "grub" treatment for lawns. I am pretty sure it was a Bayer product. The one specified was the "24 hour grub treatment". Its a granular product that I have never been able to find locally here. There are several grub treatments, but none have the Imiclopramid (sp?) The other products are liquid treatments that you dilute with water and pour around the bases of the plants. These are both Bayer products....one is the Bayer Systemic Rose treatment. It has a rather low percentage of the actuve insecticide. The other is the same thing but designed for trees and shrubs, its much more concentrated. I have used both on heliconias, gingers, and other plants for mealybugs, and it has not been very effective. I think the reason why is it would take so much to systemically "reach" all the plant....you dose it according to the diameter of the tree trunk, the height of the plant, etc. Some of my heliconias are 20 ft tall, it would take a huge amount to treat them individually, and by "estimating" the dosage, these products just haven't worked for me. I think I am going to have better control with the oil sprays.

I want to further this post by asking one more question. I live in an apartment and have planted some shumard and live oaks in a 5 gallon pot. The problem is, I don't get direct sunlight in my apartment, but I keep the pot close to window for light. What I am planning to do is to hopefully either plant some at my brother's backyard, and maybe, somehow, if it's possible grow them inside my apartment for me. I don't know how fast they'll grow, and how big pot will I need over the next year. It's been two weeks since put this acorns and it's my first time experience. Ideally, I was planning to grow acorn from the seed for my future house, which is still 2 years away. The other important thing I read about is to not allow the plant roots to circle the pot. I wonder, how can I deal with the growing tap root in the pot, considering their growth is four times longer than their size above the ground. I know, these are a lots of questions, but if someone can answer them for me, that would be really helpful to me. Thank you so much.