Cara About the best I can suggest is repotting them into some fresh mix. If you get rain in autumn, now would be a good time to do this. I bought a Syzygium last year and repotted promptly as it was very pot-bound. I used a bonsai-type mix- very free-draining with 5mm grit, but with some added humus as I know they like a rich soil that holds moisture. If your mix has been drying out too quickly because the roots have filled the pot, or it lacks humus, then your plants won't be able to repel 'invaders'. Don't take too much of the root ball back. Leave about a third and take out the older brown roots, leaving the young white growing tips as much as possible. When you've done it, put it on either the south or east side of the house and keep it just moist for about a month. Dunk it about once a week, wait until the bubbles stop, and let it drain, not stand in water. After the first month has passed from when you repotted, you might want to give it a monthly liquid fertiliser feed. Miracle Gro has been pretty good for my plants. If they make growth over winter, check again in spring to see if the roots have colonised the pot. If they have, and you've got good top growth, too, pot on without disturbing either top or roots. If it's really booming - do another check next autumn. I've got a Coprosma that's only about 15cm high but grows furiously so it needs repotting twice a year. I'm not sure how fast your lilly pillies will grow, but keeping an eye on root growth is a prudent thing to do to keep pests away. And thorough watering.

g'day bazzworth, treatment with a white oil spary either a home made white oil or an off the shelf, spray after the heat of the sun, a hadge could be quiet involved if all parts of the hedge are infected? look for the ants they would have bought them in, so if you move the ants on then the scale will not prolificate and will over time disappear. you could lay some ant bait stations along the path of the ants (might be a recipe or 2 on our remedies page), or if you can find the nest target the nest, a regular daily dose of water will send them off hopefully to far enough away, you could use buckets of grey water. there are commercial ant sands available, they work quiet well. for individual plants a smear of vaseline around the trunk will stop the ants, be sure the plant does not have contact at any other points as the ants will find this and bypass the vaseline. len Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

It's rather a narrow planting area but if they've been going OK for all these years, that would rule out a lot of things. And there are enough past years where weather extremes have probably been experienced. Barring some sort of accidental poisoning.... something in the nature of a defoliant, or something used on the driveway that's washed in, I can only think, as you did, that the burial in chip mulch set them back. Maybe the chips leached something of sap into the soil, or generated too much heat buildup, or simply smothered surface roots. I can't suggest anything other than TLC and a bit of fertilizer to see if you can get them going again. I don't know enough about pruning to comment further.

Is that W. floribunda? If so, it grows to around 30 metres tall. (I know you said you'd prune it as a hedge, but then you'll lose any weeping characteristics.) And if you plant Clivea behind that Box hedge, it'll be lower than the hedge and never seen. I reckon it's already over-crowded as it is (or will be once those Waterhousea get going), and no way there'll be room for Hydrangeas between those trees. They'll be touching each other in no time. If you're planning on selling the house in a year or 2, go for it. If you want to stay there longer, I'd suggest restraint...