Question
I have a plant that I believe is a type of umbrella plant (it was a gift).  The leaves are sticky and are dripping the sticky stuff onto my floor.   The plant is about 4 ft wide, 3 ft tall and I keep it in a corner with windows on both sides.  It gets light early in the day thru mid-afternoon.  It is about 2 years old.  I water it once or twice a week.  I really like the plant, but the stickiness seems to be getting worse.  I sometimes take it outside and spray it with a hose (gently) to wash the leaves.

I would love to find out what I can do about this problem!

Hope you can help!!

Carrie


Answer
Carrie,

Your plant probably has scale which is an insect. The sticky stuff is it's excrement. It is on the backs of the leaves and the stem and it looks like a little pimple that you can flick off with your fingernail and the leaves look fine underneath. It is sucking sap out of the plant. Go to a garden center and ask for Neem oil for plants and mix it with water according to the package instructions then put the mix in a spray bottle and spray the fronts and backs of all the leaves well. Repeat the spraying every other day for 2 weeks to kill any eggs that hatch. Persistance is the key to getting rid of these pests. One spraying will not work. As long as the temperature stays above 50 degrees you could leave the plant out on your patio for the 2 weeks that you are spraying it. The shefflera (umbrella plant) will love the sunny vacation. That should get rid of the problem. Good luck.

Darlene