LOL! Thanks Johnmerr. I had a small ornamental pear in a former yard and it was a very pretty tree but this one may be sharing too many pests with my citrus. I would take it out in a heartbeat if I knew it would reduce the number of scale bugs on other trees in my yard. The good news is that I hear ornamental pear is great BBQ wood! I'm not quite sure how to handle my scale bug infections since they seem to be active during my hot season and I'm afraid to use the oil products then. I personally think my hard-packed anaerobic soil is stressing my trees and there isn't a lot I can do about that except to dig huge holes for future plantings and replace the soil with a more sandy loam.

Thanks again everyone for your advice! I actually plan to take my plants outside next summer, especially my brand new grafted citrus tree! This summer though I had a College apartment until August and there was not really any space to put my plants outside since I lived on the third floor and by the time I moved back home in mid August I figured there was no use taking the time to harden the plants off to being outside with only a month left of acceptable temperatures. I actually have never even thought of spraying my plants preemptively though! I will have to do that from now on. The Schefflera plant is 2.5 feet tall (not including the pot) but it is a spread out plant with pretty easy access to all the leaves so it shouldn't be too hard to handle. I will clip off the really bad leaf stalks and then will try the methods mentioned before to hand treat it and will hope for the best! As far as the Gardenia, The flowers are actually what caught my attention at the store, I loved their smell and appearance so I bought a already blooming plant (that was back in May) though I was concerned about taking care of it after reading from many places that Gardenia's absolutely require full sun and a very specific temperature range to bloom but the plant has really taken off! it has grown a couple inches taller and I can already tell it will need to be repotted in the spring as it continues to grow new leaves. It continued to flower all summer until just about a month ago then the few remaining buds turned black and fell off, I assume probably because of the days getting shorter and thus it getting less sun. I hope it will bloom on its own next spring but if it doesn't seem to be growing buds I will get one of my grow lights and try what you suggested! Thanks for the link and all the advice, I will be sure in the future to always spray my plants to help keep them pest free. I'm new at gardening and always appreciate advice from more experienced people such as all of you :)

Scale is one of those insect pests that really should be treated. They can seriously weaken a tree and they easily migrate to other plants. If it is a hard shelled scale, spraying with dormant oil won't have much of an impact - that shelled surface makes them pretty much impervious to the spray. It is best to treat these when they are in a far more vulnerable instar stage. And to know when that is, you need to identify the kind of scale - there are dozens. Check to see if these have a hard shell and then post clear, close up photos for an ID. If a soft bodied scale, the dormant oil should work well.

If you're asking about the tiny spots ..... if they don't rub off easily, they're lenticles - raised pores in the periderm through which gases in the plant are exchanged with fresh air that surrounds the plant. Of more concern is the white tissue seen on the left stem from the bottom of the image upward to about 2/3 the height of the image, and on the right stem in a fairly narrow band at the nodal division, bottom of the image. This appears to be a fungal infection of the stem that probably started in the roots and has gone systemic. This type of infection clogs the plant's vasculature, limiting or stopping water transport altogether. Plant central reads the lack of a water supply as drought, and in order to limit water loss, leaf shedding ensues as a survival mechanism (drought response). Al