Here's a picture of some buds I clipped this morning. Other bushes which have stopped blooming look sick. For 40 years my bushes have been mostly trouble-free, only sprayed a few times. Barely had any aphids or mildew this spring. And now this. it's very disturbing. Aren't these just UGLY??? I got a spray bottle of spinosad, clipped a bush down to just sticks and sprayed it. I clipped it because recently when in The Huntington neighborhood I noticed all their small roses at the entry gate were clipped down very short, 8"-ish. Maybe they clipped them and then sprayed. I have about 30 bushes and cannot do all with a little spray bottle. My hand was cramped doing the one bush. Maybe I'll get someone to come do it. I don't like to spray myself.

Oy vay, life has been sooo busy I haven't gotten to come back here and reply at all. Just wanted to update on how the plant is doing: It's lost about 10 leaves or so. Some of them showed damage, so I think it was the bugs rather than the alcohol since it's all bottom leaves that came off, nothing up top and the entire plant has been getting alcohol-ed. So far, I only saw mealies on two different days. Day one, and day two. I made sure to directly get the ones I could see swabbed off with an alcohol soaked q-tip as well as general plant treatment. I have been periodically checking all my other plants just in case I missed it long enough for them to spread, but i've not seen anything on anyone else yet. The plant is currently hanging out in the livingroom all by it's lonesome and probably will be there for a month or two until I feel more secure. It's sitting around bare rooted right now, but I am giving the roots the occasional misting with water in case the extended hanging around with nothing is hard on it. Thank you everyone for the advise! Should I continue to spray it with alcohol mix without any sign of new mealies in so long? How long should I do so, if so?

The only way to eliminate scale is to treat for it - there is no natural control or predatory insect that will completely address the issue (although they can help). And the recommended method is with a horticultural oil applied at the appropriate timing of the life cycle of the scale organisms. Ants can be more easily deterred if you wrap the trunk in a sticky tape or something like Tanglefoot to keep them from climbing the tree. They are just after the honeydew or the sweet, sticky substance the scale excrete - if you control the scale you will also be controlling the ants.

I separated the keiki and repotted it in new orchid bark. I didn't want to risk the mealybugs lurking in all the roots of the mother plant. I hated to do it, but I think it made the most sense. This plant has been a fighter, so hopefully it will stay alive! Since it looks like it spread to at least one other plant I also bought Bayer rose and flower (they only had the 3 in 1 in a really big concentrated bottle which I didn't want to have to deal with) so I think I'll spray them with that today. I'd rather just hit them hard than risk them spreading to all the plants in our small condo. (and they're all indoor plants so I'm not worried about the bee issue.)