Yesterday evening Vince came in and asked me to come outside. He had found bagworms in the front in Juniper under the River Birch trees.
Over half of the Juniper is already dead. None of the worms were there just a few days ago. We were standing out there looking. One of the neighbors walked over. He had his sprayer in his hand . . he was out spraying too. He said another neighbor has already lost a pine tree. While standing there, we could hear the worms . . it was like a mild little roar . . the worms rattling inside their “bags”. It was eerie!
Vince was ready to burn the whole thing and I was saying “NO! You will ruin the River Birch trees!” The neighbor told him the same thing so he backed off the burning. He came inside and was going to call Josh, the guy with the skid steer and backhoe and ask him to come ASAP and clear it all out. I talked him into spraying it with the spinosad and then spray it again in a few days and see what happens. I’m sure it’s all going to have to come out, which is fine with me. This will be a great place to plant natives under those River Birch trees, which are also native. We had debated about pulling out all that juniper (which is full of weeds) but our landscape guy said “Let’s leave it for this year” . . since we have enough other stuff to plant but now . . it’s kinda taken out of our hands.
Our other neighbor said about four years ago, they lost a big spruce to the worms. Who would ever have thought this would happen??
Cindy F says
I’m sorry for all your bagworm woes. When we lived in Oklahoma we had a crabapple tree that had a horrible case of bagworms. Fortunately that was the only tree to become infested and we were able to take care of it. I had no idea they could spread so fast and damage so many varieties of trees and shrubs! Hopefully you will be able to get it all under control and replant with things that aren’t susceptible to them if there are such trees/shrubs. I’m currently fighting aphids as they are all over my apricot tree (no apricots this year as cold weather killed the flowers) and out front on all my lupine plants. Trying to figure out the best way to treat them to keep them out of the garden and at the same time not kill all the ladybugs and lacewings that have come to feast. I might just pull all the plants.
Mayleen says
We have all of our trees sprayed every year for bag worms. The chemicals they use are supposed to be safe for pets, birds, insects, etc. I used to pick the bag worms off by hand but that, in my opinion, is disgusting but you do what you have to do. They have also floated through the air and attached themselves to a rose bush and even our house.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Exactly. Everything we use is supposed to be safe but I surely don’t want it on anything I’m going to eat. Plus these things hatch out at different times so in the future we’ll have to spray weekly from about mid-May til mid-June to hope to keep them down.