Pest indentification needed

An off topic request please, my lovely Hydrangea has been attacked terribly by these pest. I've tried spraying them with Malathon but it doesn't effect them, help si appreciated.
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paul....look up oystershell scale.......

neptune wrote:paul....look up oystershell scale.......

Thanks John will do, I thought the might be eggs of some sought.

Had a look at Google John, that doesn't look like them.

Sorry guys the plant is a Gardenia. Had a seniors moment lol

Paul...can you take the second photo and blow up the middle of it up to get a better close up shop......

neptune wrote:Paul...can you take the second photo and blow up the middle of it up to get a better close up shot......

Get onto it tomozz John

just want to see if they are spider mites......

I don't know what they are, but I'm interested to find out. They look really gross Paul

Couldn't to take some more photos today, however hopefully most of the pest are gone, I took the option of pruning it hard to get rid of all the diseased foliage.

Paul...just use the ones you have and crop and expand it.......

also I would like to see if confidor killed them....

Here we are John, hopefully these photos are better, some look like little tics
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Took a couple of leaves with these pest on them to my local nursery. The person I spoke to, in her opinion, the said pests are scale, as Neptune eluded to. Also the plant has some sooty mould, which apparently a result of the scale. Hmmm they sure didn't look like scale to me.

The big fellas "could" be scale, not totally positive, scale is flatter like this without legs,
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If you look at Pauls photos, there appears to be a hole in each of the "egg" thing. I wonder if these things are the cocoon for the bugs which again appear to be 'walking" around like little ants/spiders beside they egg thing.
Paul do the little bugs move ? also is there any damage to the leaves at all, are they on the underside of the leaf.
Paul, do you have any Dept of Ag or an Ag college/ Uni anywhere close, you could give them a ring and try to track down an Entomologist, this is the person which will be able to give you the best ID of the family these little fellas belong to, and then you will have the options of how to control them if they are 'baddies'..

Thanks David, nothing appears to be moving, 99% are under the leaves. the leaves on a garden is are glossy, but have all lots the gloss and some are curling. I think there's no sought they are nasties they caused the plant to look shocking. As mentioned before I pruned it right back to get rid of most of the infection and bagged it and binned it. As for dep of ag, I will look into that and see if I can email them the photos. Ta

The scale that is seen on a rose isn't the insect but a wax like covering that protects the little beasties.This could be a photo of the little beasties just after they hatched and before they built their wax like covering. I would try eco oil mixed with pyrethrum or pest oil on the little beasties.

Thanks for that ausrose, didn't know you could add to the economy oil.