The Day After Bonsai........

The girls and I were really tired this morning after two days of hours of walking in the forest.    I walked through sand, which is hard in of itself, but the girls ran back and forth dozens of times, circling around me through the woods.  No wonder they were zombies this morning!!!!!
      I had taken 5 trees out to the  nursery to pot and style.  I was all hung ho and ready to work............    only to get stopped dead in my tracks.  Every one of the Maples I took out, was infested with bugs.....   small, white, black fuzzy and moving around webs......   I quickly removed everything from the nursery so I wouldn't infest any nursery stock.   That is why there was no bonsai for me yesterday......   I choose to make lemonade and have a wonderful, alternative day out in the forest
      Today, I loaded up the maples and headed to the Univ. Flor. Agricultural Extension Center.   The ladies in there listened to my sad tale, then started combing through trees.  Everything they found, which was plenty, was microscopic bugs.  The bugs were slid of a leave, put on a white piece of paper and put under a microscope to be identified.  
      I had 3 types of infestation .....   a black scale, hard shell.  The lady watched it crawl out of the shell and walk across the paper (not visible to the naked eye)   There was a white soft scale that left white dots all over everything (insect poo)  and there were some fuzzy looking things, (like a Mohawk haircut) which were really nymphs (juvenile white scale and aphids). 
     The 3 types of bugs have had a payday on my trees doing considerable damage.  The Ag Center gave me formula of spray to put on the trees and kill all the insects.  The trees will need several treatments and total isolation  from my other trees in the backyard.  There has been a lot of damage, but Because I have found it early on and trees are still alive now, the hope is that the trees will survive.
       I gathered everything I will need to make the spray, to blast water on the trees and clean them, repot them in pristine soil and repot them.   
     I will let you know how that goes tomorrow......