Walking on the St. John’s Lutheran Church campus a few weeks ago, I noticed a recently planted crape myrtle that didn’t appear to have its normal spring color or vigor. Upon closer inspection, I ...

A reader needs help with their crepe myrtle. Plus, plant of the week. "My crepe myrtles look awful. There are white specks on the trunk and branches, and the bark has turned black." Yikes." -Debbie ...

Dear Neil: How can I find someone qualified to tell me if a very large tree needs to be taken down? I’ve gotten conflicting comments. You need a Certified Arborist. He or she will be a member of the ...

There's good news and bad news at Trident Technical College: we now have crape myrtle scale. The good news is horticulture students get firsthand exposure to this invasive pest. The bad news is we ...

Tonya Ashworth shows how to square foot garden and Mr. D. demonstrates a soil drench. This week on The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South, garden expert Tonya Ashworth talks about the basics of ...

Crape Myrtle Bark Scale (CMBS) is an exotic invasive pest that arrived in Delaware in 2020. This insect reduces flowering and produces copious amounts of honeydew. Sooty mold, a non-pathogenic dark ...

WASHINGTON — Crape Myrtle trees are found all over the DMV. They boast beautiful blooms and are a staple of many landscapes. But little white critters, called bark scale, are threatening the trees.

We see it all in the Plant Clinic, and this summer we’ve been seeing a lot of Acanthococcus lagerstroemiae or crapemyrtle bark scale. This invasive insect from southeast Asia first appeared in the ...