White oil

[phillicondor]

Hi all. noticed on one of my juniper bonsai (squamata I think) that there were some branches that had lots of little white scaly looking things on them. I have a neighbour who's a mad keen gardener so i asked him what he thought and he threw me a can of white oil and said to give em a spray with that. Hes only ever given me good advice so I didn't hesitate. ive since had a google and seen that some people have had some bad experience with white oil on juniper bonsais. should I be worried? it was only a light spray and the trees aren't looking stressed or unhealthy. is it just that they can "suffocate" if it's used to liberally or frequently?
And my next question is what should I do about the white scaly things?

[treeman]

The old white oils could be a bit heavy. I use ''pest oil'' from Bunnings etc. It if a lighter finer formulation. It will turn blue junipers green but it does kill the scale. (the new growth will be blue again) Do it during cool weather. As long as it was not too strong a concentration, it should not harm the juniper leaves. Adding Malathion to the spray helps too. Make sure you get rid of the scale. They can do huge damage!
I now spray my junipers once per month (more or less) whether I see scale or not.

[phillicondor]

Cheers for the advice. They're looking healthy still but thers still a bit of scale around. I might get a bottle of eco oil. Cheers

[Jarad]

What about Yates scale gun?

[BonsaiPancake]

It will turn blue junipers green but it does kill the scale. (the new growth will be blue again)

So I did this a bit hastily with my Blue Atlas Cedar as I've had great results on other trees (using Searles White Oil specifically). Woke up this morning to see the foliage now a dark green. Will this react in a similar way to a Juniper where new growth will be blue, or have I done damage to the tree?

[AdamBonz]

Havent tried it on a Juniper but a Mugo pine, my first experience using white oil last season wasn't great. This new tree looked healthy and fine but I noticed white fluff, determined it was alegids. Tree was sprayed in the shade mid-summer but on a cool 18 deg day. The needles starting turning yellowy-brown within 2 weeks and 2 months later, branches and trunk were dead. Probably user error, I don't know if I sprayed too much and it leeched into the soil or if my cheap white oil spraycan was simply crap but I haven't touch the stuff since lol.