Hard dry heat in late summer makes cactus dehydrate and opportunistic scale insects are invading. My prickly pears needed treatment all of a sudden, proving conditions are right for rapid infestation ...

Q: I have a backyard prickly pear with a cochineal infestation. Does that need to be treated? Do these guys ever go away on their own? Are they even actually a problem for the cactus? A: Cochineal ...

Q: I have prickly pear cactus that has white patches on the pads that looks like little bits of cotton. What is this, and is this bad for the plant? A: Most likely what you are seeing on your cactus ...

Q: I have white cotton clusters on my prickly pear cactus. What effect do they have on prickly pear cactuses? What is it and what should I do about it? A: Many of us have prickly pear cactus growing ...

Nature taught me a lesson this week. It was centered around my large old Opuntia 'Santa Rita', the purple cactus so attractive to cochineal scale. These white cottony looking spots on the leaves are ...

Three small cacti in pots on a windowsill, all of them are leaning far towards the right and looking sick - Anton Novikov/Getty Images Whether you're keeping an indoor cactus or an outdoor one, ...

Some of the prickly pear cacti are encrusted with a tangle of waxy, white silken threads. At first, the patches of white look like fungus or blotches of bleached, dead tissue. But closer inspection ...

THE commercial value of the insects from which cochineal, lac, and Japanese white wax are obtained were briefly referred to, by Dr. L. O. Howard, in the course of a short paper on a useful American ...