Originally Posted by swatchpost

Hello! I had the exact same problem with my willow leaf, Ficus nerifolia a couple months ago. You can look up all the answers to my same question if you search for the thread "Bad Watering Habit."

Essentially, I was watering incorrectly, and that caused a scale attack probably due to the tree weakening from overwatering. As soon as the scale attacked, the tree lost most of its leaves in two days and I was freaking out. This happened to my Jim Smith Ficus and I was praying, voodooing, everything I could think of to keep it from dying.

The best thing that I've found is to physically remove (pinch-out) the scale with tweezers (when they get mature), and be sure to look in EVERY single little crevice they could possibly hide. I hit them as well with Schultz insecticide spray which contains neem oil (just look on the back of the spray bottle if you have that in your area). I did that every four days, and in a week they were gone. My tree has budded back since then, and luckily didn't lose any branches from my now-corrected bad watering habit.

Hope this helps. Nerifolias are finicky trees. You've got to always keep your eye on them for ANY changes, and pay special close attention to your watering—pest problems are never the real problem—they are usually a result of something else.

Cheers!

Yusef