Californians aren’t the only ones moving to North Carolina and ruining housing prices! (I’m teasing… I grew up in California, and now am honored to call North Carolina home.) No, the newest resident is Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae! That’s right, crepe myrtle bark scale.

The first thing you’ll notice is sticky black stuff everywhere under your crepe myrtle. It’ll be on your patio, on your furniture, on your car or boat, anything that is directly under a crepe myrtle. You’ll even see black crepe myrtle leaves in the tree itself, and the trunk of the tree and branches will be black. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see white bumps on the branches. If you are patient, you might notice an awful lot of ants in your crepe myrtle.

If all of that sounds familiar, you’ve got scale.

This has become a more common problem in recent years. Scale is an insect that sucks carbohydrates (sugars) out of the tree. But they are messy eaters, and they poop out undigested carbohydrates EVERYWHERE! Ants like to eat the “honeydew” carbohydrates, so they chase away natural insect predators, and then the scale population explodes. The black stuff is sticky because it is nutrient rich, but it is black because sooty mold grows readily on the sticky carbohydrates.

You can clean your patio over and over, but it won’t stay clean until you kill the bugs.

Spraying is difficult because these scale insects have a waxy coating on the outside that acts like a protective shell while the scale insects keep their face buried in the tree, sucking out the sugars. We like to avoid spraying whenever possible anyway, since spraying can be a health and environmental nightmare.

We have come up with a combination of systemic insecticides mixed with fertilizer. We apply this directly to the soil, where your crepe myrtle can take the mixture in via the roots. The fertilizer helps facilitate pesticide uptake, and it also ensures that your crepe myrtle has all the necessary building blocks to be strong and healthy. After application, the liquids inside the tree become poisonous to scale, and that poison goes directly into the scale insects when they feed.

If your crepe myrtles are turning black, give us a call or fill out our contact form. We’ll be happy to set up a diagnostic visit to inspect your trees, and we’ll give you a detailed written estimate if you’ve got scale that we can treat.