I have planted confederate jasmine vines in may and they are doing GREAT besides the one at mailbox...it has little red and white bugs I can wipe off on back side of leaves. What are they?

It's rather difficult to see the insects in your photo but I'm wondering if they are perhaps soft scale which can sometimes be a pest of Star Jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) You can use an insecticidal soap ( usually available at Home Depot, Lowes and Wal-Mart garden centers) or you might try mixing a batch of homemade spray if you have the following ingredients on hand:

1 1/2 teaspoons Liquid Dishwashing Soap
1 Quart Water
1 Clean Spray Bottle

Another mixture:

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
2 Tablespoons Liquid Dishwashing Soap
1 Gallon Water
1 Clean Spray Bottle

Mix thoroughly and pour into a spray bottle; thoroughly spray the entire plant, trying to get the stems as well as the backs of the leaves.

*** Note *** Never spray or use any insecticide on plants in direct sunlight ... always do it either in shade or on a cloudy day so that you don't end up with scorched leaves. Also, be sure to LABEL the spray bottle to be certain it is not mistakenly used for something else.

You might find this short article of interest; it was written by one of our members here on All Things Plants:
http://garden.org/ideas/view/S...

These are better pics and I am curious if the bark is suppose to look like this with same color as bark bumps all over? Also, little black bugs hard to scrape off all over backside of leaves. Drive me crazy. My hubby bout a spray at Home Depot called Sevin is that safe? Help. I've worked sooooo hard to care for these plants.

Hm, I can't tell exactly what they are from your photos either. But I think using Sevin on those bugs would be like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. Sevin is a chemical of last resort and I personally never use it in my garden. It's just going to nuke every bug for miles around including lots of beneficial ones.

Lin's advice to try the soapy water solution would be my first try, too. It's relatively benign but usually very effective. You should spray the plant in the evenings, maybe twice a week for the next couple of weeks to get any new hatchlings of the bugs. Hose the plant off in the morning to get the soap off the tops of the leaves.

Soap is what is known as a 'mechanical' insecticide. It kills the bugs by cutting through the protective waxy coating on their bodies. So they never get immune to it as they can to other insecticides that poison by ingestion. Just like people's infections get resistant to antibiotics, if you use it too much, or use the 'big guns' right away, resistant strains of the bugs will develop, and your problems will actually increase long-term.

If the soapy water alone doesn't cure it, try the soap/oil combination, which is better for scales because the oil literally smothers the bugs.

In the first photo of the last 3 ~~~ the bumpies on the stems are normal - just the plant doing it's thing.
Second photo I still can't see well enough to give a concrete ID. Could be aphids, could be immature scales before they make their hard covering.
3rd photo looks like scale.

Thank you so much ! I spend hrs making my "curb appeal" nice and this really made me sad...the "bumpies" on the bark THANK YOU. I thought it was a pest. Scraping it off. Thank you for telling me that. I have googled healthy bark, etc and never was able to know it was. I appreciate all your help to my jasmines. I decided to do the homeade recipe. It did scorch some leaves even though I did it at night and sprayed in the morn. But I don't see the black dots om back of leaves. You guys are awesome!

You can spray "the recipe" on it & wait 1/2 hour & then rinse it off --- you don't have to wait overnight. So spray at dusk or even at dark & then rinse 1/2 hour later.

Keep an eye on the scales -- the dark ones with the hard coating --- they are hard to get rid of for good.

Ah! Got ya! That's will do again then . I h ave seen none of the clusters of red bugs aka eggs but have seen the black dots on back of leaves still.t I pick them off Those..Bad Boys are hard as a.rockI will do that Mix again tonight.

Yep, pick or scrape off the hard ones if you can. There are a ton of leaves on confederate jasmine & it would be impossible to check every single one. So pick & look & keep a close watch. Any hard scales that don't get killed will reproduce, when the baby scales are young, soft & mobile they are susceptible to being killed by the spray so you're going to have to keep a close watch on things & treat from time to time.
When you pick those hard ones off, I always stick my fingernail in to cut them in half or you can drop them in a container of alcohol to make sure they DIE.