Look in the phone book for the city or county department which takes care of those things. If you are not sure, call the general number, explain the problem with the neighbors tree, and they should get you to the right department.

It's impossible to guess what their response will be, but it's worth a shot.

Are you sure they are mealy bugs? they are normally an indoor pest and they cling so tightly, I can't imagine them "falling" onto your Clematis.

Thank you for answering! Yes, I am positive 100%, I took a pic with my macro lens, inspected, googled ad figure it out what they are. They are easily smashed with a hard object, they move really slowly and they are thousands, in groups at the leaf and twig nodes.

Maybe they didn't fall, but they walked on my plants. They are walking on the woodsticks that support my clemies too.

As nobody wants to do anything ( the space belongs to another group of townhouses, where we are not renting) I started cutting the overhanging branches, but it's a futile attempt. I can only reach that far without a ladder... I inspected the area and many more young trees and shurbs are full of them, not just the tree over-shading my backyard.

If life is like this, so be it....

I read in the organic forum that spraying clems with diluted milk would help, but then I'm wondering if milk doesn't make them even more inviting to earbugs? Many of the young leaves look like lace, they are so eaten away...

Mealy bugs don't eat leaves to lace. They don't chew, they suck sap and gradually drain plants of vigor.

Earwigs chew new growth to lace.

You've got something else going on. Can you post the picture?

Spraying with milk? That is a new one to me. I've always killed mealies with rubbing alcohol on the q-tip or diluted spray or insecticidal soap.

In twenty plus years of working in horticulture I've never heard of them being an outdoor pest. Only in greenhouses and houseplants. Where do you live?

We get mealybugs on outdoor plants in CA. Spraying with a horticultural oil works pretty well if you get good coverage. For a heavy infestation, it is advised to spray 2-3 times at recommended intervals.

A more toxic, but maybe more efficient, method is to use a systemic insecticide.

wanda

Thank you for your answers. Yes, I'll try to post my pictures, just for the sake of information. I would be glad to be mistaken.

I know it's the earwigs ( or something else) eating the leaves, and I don't see any visible damage from the mealybugs. I also have a different kind of damage on the rose leaves, like trails eaten trough the leaves ( their thickness) and just a thin brown membrane of the leaves remaining.... but this is not the rose forum.

I am in Toronto East, zone 6a. Trust me, mealybugs are an outdoor pest. Anybody knows if they die in winter?

I have managed to cut most of the branches that were going through and low over my fence, and have not seen more than one or two bugs any more on my plants. I just scrub them down with a piece of the wood mulch that I put around plants, and smash them. I know about q-tips and alcohol, but I was a little concerned about burns/ dehydration on the very young twig knots, where I usually see the mealybugs.

But it's just horifying to see so many bugs on these trees and shrubs outside of the fence...

systemic would not be an option for me....

Ok, I added pictures of the bugs,hope I can upload

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47301981@N00/2612580489/

That is certainly a mealybug. I stand corrected. Very bizarre for me to think of them being an outdoor pest. I have had horticulture education and years of working in horticulture in both the Desert Southwest and Pacific Northwest and haven't ever seen them except on houseplants. Sorry.

Earwigs are a major pest of Clematis, especially new growth. If you search the forum, there are several threads on the topic.

Insecticidal soap should work on the mealybugs.

I wasn't aware they were outdoor pests either. I've only ever seen them inside in my zone. Live and learn, I guess.

Indoors, I use a spray of rubbing (isopropyl 70%) alcohol and water (2:1) with some liquid soap (a tsp or so) as a surfactant. Use it in a spray bottle. But a larger amount could be made up for use in a bigger sprayer for outdoors. I've never had trouble eradicating even severe infestations with this concoction (works on spider mites, white flies and aphids also). GaryStPaul

I used to live in that area and I had terrible trouble with them as well. I hate them and I never found a good cure for them. I moved................seem extreme? I do think the winter kills them though. That was my experience anyway. Most of what got infected was fine the following year. I found the infestations to be transient.
Good luck!