Mealy bugs, give your plant a good bath and then spray with a soap insecticide as well. Keep on top of them, they are really hard to get rid of.

Sharon

I agree with crazy_gardener. It is definitely mealy bugs.

Give them a good bath means immerse them into a tub of water for about 10 minutes, or at least give them a good shower, and then let it drain. Squish as many as you can with your fingers. They won't hurt you at all. Then, give them a good spray, and then again the next week, and again the next week. When they get lower in number, you can dab them with rubbing alcohol straight from the bottle. You may find the mature bugs jump from plant to plant. Keep on top of it.

I had a bad batch a couple of years ago on my oleander, but they survived, and now they are fine.

Thanks alot, I'll get right on that

Damien

Oh - wow! That's about the worst case of mealies I've ever seen! They must love gardenias! :-)

It can be hard to rinse the cottony stuff off sometimes, so if you have an old toothbrush lying around, you could dip that in soapy water and use that to gently scrub them off.

I finally managed to get rid of mealies that had been plaguing a big Clivia for years - I sprayed it with rubbing alcohol every two days for two weeks (rinsed it off with water afterwards), and then sprayed it every five days for a month. So far it's been four months and I haven't seen one. This was on a plant that had I had been battling infestations on for two years. Neither regular insecticidal soap or neem oil had been effective - rubbing alcohol usually works, but you have to spray very frequently to eradicate them. I had been lazy before :-)

BP