A few months ago I had stickiness and scale on my Thai lime. I cleaned the plant thoroughly (picked off insects' waxy protection then wiped each and every leaf, stem, nook and cranny with a mild detergent solution). I've been keeping a close eye on it to detect scale the moment it crops up again, but nada. Perfectly clean. It looks great. Now, it's developing a stickiness to the leaves again. This appears to be different. Before, there were big, discrete drops of stuff, but now it's an allover flush to only the oldest leaves and it looks less like something is excreting all over and more like the tree is sweating. Also, the fluid is exceptionally resinous (citrus) smelling, unlike before. When disturbed, the fluid gives off an incredibly strong Thai lime leaf smell. I've been popping in at various times during the day for a week (searching with a flashlight, wiping various leaves to look for evidence of ... anything!) and haven't detected any insect activity whatsoever. Do citrus ever just exude resin, or do I definitely have a pest problem? The tree looks wonderful -- huge glossy leaves with a lot of new growth, and even 3 healthy-looking developing limes. I'm reluctant to spray it with anything if I can't find a specific problem that needs combating. I'm stumped. Thanks for any help!

WD40 will take the sticky off. I suggest you try it on a very small area first to make sure it doesn't remove the finish. If you can find a good quality hand cleaner with lanolin that will take off the sticky and not hurt the finish. Those are very hard to find these days.

Just tyi, the sticky residue is I think because you left it on too long and it dried. You want to remove the stripper when it's still wet. If you have a lot of old layers of paint, put the stripper on thick and cover it with plastic and remove it the next day. The plastic will keep the stripper from drying out.

It could be that a caterpillar is to blame. They can be very hard to find as many are green. Could luck finding the culprit Lisa.