Mealybugs

I had my first introduction to mealybugs last week.  Ewww...!!! It's white and they stick on the plants and basically suck the nutrients out of them.  I think I still need to read up more on them.  Supposedly soapy water is able to kill them so hopefully it will!  Somehow they started appearing on the tall plants along the side of the house:

You can see all those white patchy "stuff" on the branches.  Just reading up on mealybugs and there are 275 different species??! Sheesh! As if one type isn't enough damage! 

Supposedly ladybugs are suppose to help.  Hmm... might have to get some more of them!  Neem oil is suppose to help too, and I just bought a bottle of that today.  So maybe I need to spray it some more.   But in the meantime, I'm just going to cut off those icky branches off:

Again, it didn't take long to fill up on of those green bins!  And as I was trimming, some of the mealybugs would fall to the ground.  Those tiny little legs on these weird-looking bugs really eek me out!

I never intended on learning about bugs and pests in general but having a home with lots of different foliage has definitely kept me up-to-date.  Ha!