Garden Pests and Diseases: Trying to Identify Pest/Disease on Our Hedges & How to Fix, 3 by RRTXNewbie

RRTXNewbie wrote:
Hello All! My wife and I are fairly new to gardening and lawn maintenance and have found these forums to be lifesavers.

Recently while mowing the side lawn, I noticed that the hedges along the side of the house look to be covered in some type of tiny white and black specks. They are kind of grainy and can removed from the leaves just by rubbing on them. The hedges on the back half of the house are covered in these things. We can't tell if they are some type of egg or other product from an insect, or if they are a fungal growth, or none of the above.

Mostly, we want to know how harmful these are to our hedges, whether they can spread and how to make our plants healthy again!

I'm attaching photos of the leaves for reference. If it helps, our location is in Central Texas.

Any assistance or advice would be much appreciated. It seems the users of these forums are amazingly friendly and eager to help, and to new homeowners like us, your input is priceless!