I had mealy bugs all over my hibiscus several years ago. Since they say malathion isn't good for hibiscus, I used an alcohol-dish soap spray and drenched the critters.

They take a long time to die. Either that, or they just keep making new ones. So I sprayed every evening when the plants were in the shade.

Once I saw that the new growth wasn't all bunchy, I stopeed spraying and switched to Bayer Advanced insect killer - I think it says something about
Trees and Shrubs on the label. It's a blue bottle and you mix it with water and pour it on the soil. It goes into the plant through the roots. 'Sposed to keep mealies
and aphids away for a year, but it didn't make it that long for my plants. When the bunchy top came back I had to start the water-alcohol-with-a-dash-of-soap spray
(baby shampoo works, too)

I was once so aggravated with the mealies that I wanted to throw all 20 of my hibiscus babies in the dumpster (even though they are hybrids I grew from seed)
so I figured I could try the malathion on one and if the plant died - oh well. But it didn't seem to hurt the plant. And the mealy bugs were back the next day. I just hate malathion and don't want it in my garden. And you probably don't want it on your veggies.

I'll bet if you do a SEARCH here on the Garden Web you'll find lots of organic ways to deal with these critters from ****.

Let us know how you make out, okay?

Susie

I use insecticidal soap and neem oil - they don't harm bees but you have to spray in the evenings so that it doesn't burn the foliage.

I went to the local pest control store and they told me neem oil and malathion on my dwarf powderpuff bush. I said I didn't want to use the malathion and just used the neem oil, so they told me to spray it once a week in the evening for 3 weeks. I sprayed it for 2 weeks and it got rid of the aphids I had and the mealy bugs. There were only a few left after 2 treatments, so I squashed them and now it's fine.

I was really surprised that this worked, but I simply blasted my mealy bugs away with water. They were on a rue that I'd planted for the swallowtails. The rue was covered with the bugs near its base.

I first tried horticultural soap (supposed to smother them) but the effect, if any, was minimal.

In googling, I read about the water blast. The hose was nearby so it was easy to give it a try. Blasting them off was easy BUT I thought they'd just crawl back. A few did return after a couple of days but absolutely no where near the previous population. I blasted the returnees again and I haven't seen any more. This was a couple of months ago.

As I said in the beginning, I really didn't expect this to work, but it did. Now I'm a believer.