Save My Cymbidium - Mealy/Scale!

[allyphally]

Hello from Sydney, Australia! I’ve been trawling the forums for the past week looking for answers to help my problem, and thought it was time to post and ask if anyone has thoughts about what I’ve been doing to try to save my Cymbidium from what I think is a mealy bug/scale attack..!

Some backstory..

My husband and I were gifted our Cymbidium for our wedding a year ago, and it has seemed quite happy until about a fortnight ago. Always lush green leaves, and about three or four new shoots last spring – no flower spikes yet though. When we first got her, she seemed crowded in her pot, but my Mum spoke to a nursery and they said Cymbidiums like to be crowded and not to worry.. So I left her outside and hoped for some blooms.

We live in a ground floor apartment facing full west, so we get loads of afternoon sun, and just reflected light in the mornings. It’s been a hot summer in Sydney – a month straight of no rain and 26C+ days. Our balcony has an overhang so even if it does rain, my plants don’t get anything, so I do all the watering myself. No issues so far that I could see, apart from lack of flowers. I occasionally used some fertiliser when watering - Neutrog brand Strike Back for Orchids.

The issue..

So about 2 weeks ago, I noticed white fluff on the Cym. Quite a bit of it on the undersides of leaves and down into the crevices of the leaves near the bulbs. So google told me it was likely mealybugs, and I did find a few actual bugs crawling around. I also have a lemon tree on the balcony which has had some mealy bugs over the past 6 months which I’ve treated with EcoOil and it seems fine. Assuming they crawled over from the lemon..

Although I read you’re not meant to repot in Summer/Autumn, since there is no new growth I decided the Cym needed repotting, after a full clean-up with an isopropyl solution (recipe gleaned online – isopropyl alcohol, water and a little mild dish detergent). I pulled her out of her pot and she was all roots.. After a bit of a hack job – man was she tough to pull apart – I split her, got rid of the dead roots with sterilised shears, and repotted into three new pots, in an Orchid potting mix (Scott’s Osmocote brand in Australia).

Now that I think I’ve cleaned up the mealybugs, I can see I’m now dealing with scale. I don’t have pics of the bug issues as I’ve cleaned them all off, but enough google image searching tells me what I’m dealing with. So I bought some White Oil spray last night and gave them all a good spray this morning.

My question is – will my Cym survive?? I have pics of her now – she has black and yellow mottles all over her bulbs and the bottoms of the leaves. One isn't as bad as the other two. And some yellow spots where I cleaned off the scale, and a few black spots tips on leaves.

Any advice much appreciated! Assuming it’s a Wait And See scenario at the moment..

Thanks!