I had a correa dusky bells growing happily in my front yard for about 5 years. It died this summer--I'm not sure what happened--it just shriveled up and died. Sometime in August, I discovered that it was completely covered with scale from the dirt to about halfway up the branches when i looked at it really closely, so I picked off all those suckers and sent them to another place, but was too late to save my plant. I left it alone until today, when I dug it up and discovered a drip line with a working emitter buried in the rootball. So, I don't know if it was excess water, or scale, or both, or something altogether different that killed it. I have 3 or 4 other correa planted nearby and they are doing fine.

my question is, before I plant a new correa in the place of the dead one, do I need to do anything to the soil? Do the antecedents of the scale (I don't know what they are called--larva?)--overwinter in the soil? I think the soil is pretty good--I amend it with compost every year.

Any advice?