Every so often I have had to deal with mealies and have been able to keep them under control with alcohol, but this time they have me stumped.

I have had my trichodiadema indoors ever since last fall and thought the drying out of many leaves along the stems (but not so bad at the tips) was due to a lack of water. In the past months, "life" and work have conspired to make me less attentive than I should be.

But I am very fond of this plant and when I finally decided today to try snipping off the dried leaves and had nearly finished the job, I suddenly realized that mealies were hiding under the thin bark-like sections of the stems. I scraped away some of the coverings to see what I could find and "alcoholed" a number of mealies, but didn't dare to scrape all the stems to expose any more potential mealies for fear of damaging them. Yet alcohol and other sprays may not reach all the bugs.

Does anyone have suggestions for dealing with this? I am very fond of this plant, which I have had for years and years.

I am planning to try rooting a couple of cuttings, but have never done that before with Trichodiadema and don't know if it would be successful.

I searched for "mealies" here and see that someone suggests washing the roots with chlorox and rinsing and replanting in new soil. Does anyone know if that would harm Trichodiadema? How about the "Safer soap" sprays?

Any help much appreciated.