Help! Juniper is dying..

[cruiserandmax]

We've had these juniper bushes growing fine on their own for about 60 years- they have always been green and healthy without any specific care besides pruning a few times each year. This year I started noticing these tiny white specs all over the bush mostly near the front corner. Then after a while I noticed dead brown parts on the bush in the same area. I did not put the two together at first and tried just pruning all of the dead brown parts. Now about a month later there are a ton more brown dead spots and it seems to be progressing down along the hedge row.

Assuming the problem is the white specs (mold, fungus, what?), can I treat the bush now with anything to kill these invaders, or whatever they might be? I noticed if I rub together with my fingers I can "clean" off the specs- ie they don't seem strongly attached, however blasting with a fairly strong hose doesn't seem to really clean them away and I can't rub the whole bush with my fingers!

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here and how we might treat it?

 

[Tetters]

That looks like Juniper scale to me https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=917 here is a link for you to look at.

 

[cruiserandmax]

Ugh! Seems like we should at leas try applying horticultural oil before just giving up. I don't think replanting this 80'x6' area of 60yr growth will be easy physically or financially. Hopefully we can save the back half that is still all green, and possibly eliminated the pests on the front half that is half brown and then hopefully have it recover..

 

[Tetters]

The thing to learn from this experience is to ''nip it in the bud'' and eliminate this sort of problem as soon as it starts. On the one occasion I missed scale on my Euonymus, I cut the whole lot down to a stub, and burnt it all on the bonfire - checked the soil around the stumps for stragglers and left it at that. Now a year or four later, the plants are growing again.
I wish you luck.