my boston ivy has died back in large patches over the last two years. This year I noticed numerous little waxy spots on the underside of the leaves. Do you know what it might be and could this be causing my plants to die off?
Your Boston Ivy looks like it has an infestation of Scale with these little white waxy spots being the crawlers. Now is the time to head to a nursery and get an insecticidal soap spray. Adult scale have a harder waxy coating and are more difficult to treat but if you get these immature crawlers now, you have some chance of diminishing the population. Make sure you spray the undersides of the leaves to get as many of them as you can. Leave the spray on for a good 10 minutes and then hose the plant down with a strong blast of water. This treatment should be done every three days for at least 2 weeks.
In the meantime, you can look for the adult, egg laying scale and these can be either hand picked off or you can gently scrape them off with an old toothbrush.
Good luck.