Help-My Wiegela has white cotton wool type cocoons on it?

Can anyone help please? My Weigela has lots of white cocoons type things stuck to the underside of the leaves and also at the base of some stems. They have ridges on them and are quite flat. Some have brown bits on end as well. I have checked my gardening books but to no avail. Also the small bush next to it was covered too and we have pulled that out as the leaves were all shrivelled. It seems to be passing onto more of my shrubs and soon the whole garden will be infested...HELP!!!??

 

Sounds like scale insect, does it look brown small and round with white fluffy stuff underneath? if so scale, use provado spray, I had them on the stems of my Japanese mapels this year, s****ed most off but then sprayed, they are ok now.

 

S****ed, don't know why it went like that.

 

Think you have to either type 'scr@ped', or 'scra ped'!

 

The white stuff seems like a cocoon rather than a bug with the white underneath it. Someone at work said it could be Mealy bugs??? Whatever they are. Any more advice gratefully received.

 

Could it be wooly aphids? I came back from holiday to find cotton wool type substance all over my apple tree. I thought it might be a type of fungus but on closer inspection it was full of eggs or bugs.
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=wooly%20aphids&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

I scrubed them off with soapy water and they don't seem to be coming back. Good luck

 

Hello again!!

I gave up trying to find out for sure what they were and asked my husband to pick them all off individually............poor thing - but he has done a wonderful job! He has saved two shrubs by doing this.......bless