Soap sprays work better if you add oil. Try a light weight oil like 3rd pressing olive or sunflower. A cup into a gallon of water with 1/4 cup soap goes over well. Mix and spray. SPRAY AT NIGHT. And then hose it all off the next morning. It's worth the effort.
DO NOT spray when you have blossoms. Spray before the tree blossoms or after fruit is set. It can and will make bees too sticky to fly and enough of it will suffocate them. It can and will sunburn blossoms as well.
If you time it right, it's spectacularly effective against catepillars of all sorts and aphids.
Neem works very well, in me experience. I add 2 tablespoons of neem to my soap spray. But again - not when there are blossoms or before you see fruit set. I once sprayed half of fruit trees and then ran out of supplies, went back about 10 days later for the other half. The half I sprayed did not set any fruit, the half I missed all had grape size apples.
And don't forget to rinse it off! It's oil and soap...hello sunburn
