Hey - pretty plant! It must have liked its summer outdoors, and you couldn't have taken off TOO much damaged foliage - it LOOKS too good. ;-) Was all the foliage you removed typical of the leaf you pictured above - damaged only in the areas with less pigment? (Sunburn? Chlorophyll is natures sunscreen for plants, so tissue with less or no chlorophyll burn much easier than green tissue.) Your plant doesn't show any issues related to root problems NOW, but how much foliage did you really remove? My experience has been that symptoms of phytotoxicity due to topical sprays usually occur where the vehicle collected & dried, which would concentrate the chemicals it was carrying as the drying progressed. It's doubtful the soapy water collected dead center in the middle of the leaf? It would probably be an easier call if the plant wasn't variegated, because the lighter areas of variegation always seem to be the first affected by several issues, over-watering and phytotoxic reactions among them. Prolly no need to 'muse' it to death. Your plant looks good NOW. I'd say that if the condition continues, look to the roots (too wet) for the answer. Keep the plant on the dry side & if the problem doesn't recur, it was almost certainly the soap. One thing that might complicate the plan is that scheffs often shed foliage after being brought in. Fortunately (I suppose) if that occurs and the plant hasn't been soggy, symptoms won't be similar so you should still be able to keep everything straight - not that it is now. ;-) Al

Re houseplants: most spoiled foliage is caused by physiological issues, over/under-watering, oedema, nutritional toxicities/ deficiencies, light levels, ...... with subsequent populations of fungi acting as opportunists as opposed to acting as causal agents. In this thread, oedema, a physiological disorder, is the main actor. Dead animals don't cause vultures, but they do provide a reason for vultures to congregate. IOW, lesions caused by physiological disorder often provide the consistently moist conditions for a period lasting long enough to ensure incubation and germination of fungal spores. This isn't to say that fungal conditions do not commonly appear in plants as pioneer pathogens, only that evidence of physiological disorder is far more common than direct evidence of pioneer populations of fungi. Plant pathologists often describe the disease process using a 4-sided figure called the disease tetrahedron (think “pyramid – 3 sides + the bottom/ base”). Each side of the tetrahedron represents an essential part of the infection process. There must simultaneously be a virulent pathogen (capable of infecting the plant) that is genetically capable of recognizing its host. Either the environment must be conducive to the development of the pathogen, or the pathogen must be able to stress/weaken the plant. The 4th requirement is the time required for diseases to develop and spread. Whenever conditions are such that any one (or more) of the 4 requirements is missing from the equation, there is no immediate threat. Since the best medicines are prophylactic, the grower who makes sure plants are healthy and not stressed is ahead of the game. Biotic diseases are better able to overcome the natural defenses of plants weakened by stress that occurs when the plant is forced to deal with cultural conditions near, at, or beyond the limits the plant is genetically programmed to deal with. Al

cleangeek, thanks for the link to the video. florist roses do have thorns. There tend to be less thorns right underneath the flower before you get to the first set of leaves . in the video that you linked to, there were actually red thorns lower down on the stem when they were picking the roses . Admittedly they're not super thorny varieties. But they're not actually thornless . One of the handling techniques discussed in a California grown video was to pick the longest roses first, lay them on your arm, then pick ever shorter roses to put on top. that way the flowers on shorter stems don't get punctured by the thorns of taller stems surrounding them . Florists and rose arrangers use a gadget called a stem stripper to remove thorns: This stem stripper is stainless steel. It will instantly remove the leaves and thorns from fresh roses. This tool is very commonly used in the floral industry and is a necessity for anyone working with roses. Length is approximately 4.5 inches. the description was for a professional one being sold by a wholesale florist supply website, but you can buy plastic and metal stem strippers from Amazon. I have used thorn strippers; I don't think they're worth the bother. That may be because I had to handle rose and I was the end-user as well . If someone else handled the rose to strip off the thorns for me, I might feel differently. the video from Holland also mentioned part of what makes their roses a premium product is they allow the flowers to open a bit further on the plant . It reminds me of the premium tomatoes which are closer to ripe when they're packed . I remember people being astonished at seeing the cut garden roses my husband brought to work actually open up until you could see stamens . Apparently florist roses tend not to open to that extent before they wither. as home rose gardeners, we're probably baffled at how much the price of roses is determined by the length of stems, all the way to superexpensive 5 foot stemmed roses.

Thanks, Dave, I just saw that Bayer product at the hardware store. You're probably right that there's no need to panic, especially if I should be concerned that systemic treatments might harm the root system. Right now the scale seems limited to a fairly small area on one side of the ficus, but my past experience with scale makes me worry that the same thing will happen if I don't do whatever I can to kill them and prevent new ones from planting their little flags on any of my babies. The one advantage I have now is that my plants are so much more healthy than they were back then, so presumably they're better able to hold up against bugs.. But here's something else: Could the intense heat of the last two days have increased pressure in the plant to make sap ooze out of the dracaena's pores? This past few days are the first time the plant has been outside in extremeheat, and all the sap I can see is on the top tuft of the most recent leaves...maybe I'll start a new thread to see whether someone's ever seen it happen. Rina, if there were aphids, etc., wouldn't I see at least a few near the sap? I really searched the whole plant I've had the dracaena for about five years and this is the first time I've seen sap. I don't know what eats scale, but I don't expect predators to make it over here for the same reason I didn't think I had to worry about insects: the nearest plants on this side of the building are a handful 25 feet away and the trees across the street about twice that distance, so I could be wrong about predators, too.