Your trees and shrubs are important to you. That’s why concerns about pests like bagworms can be a huge source of frustration. Bagworms, like most caterpillars, can really go to town feasting on your beloved plant material. That means that you could end up losing these plants to this hungry creature.
If you are worried about bagworms, you might be looking for the best bagworm treatment options.
In this article, we’ll help you identify whether you have bagworms on your trees and what actions you should take if you do. Understanding how to get rid of bagworms is critical to the long-term health of your landscape.
We’ll cover:
Are There Bagworms in Your Trees?
What Does Bagworm Damage Look Like?
How to Get Rid of Bagworms
Choosing Plant Health Care Services in Louisville
At the end of the day, we simply want you to feel educated and confident about making choices about your landscape. We know that it can feel like a burden trying to figure everything out but you aren’t on your own.
Bagworms are a highly identifiable pest, even to the average homeowner, since the “bag” that they hang in is relatively large (and noticeable).
Bagworms obviously get their names because of this “bag,” which is a sack constructed from a combination of the caterpillar’s silk as well as pieces of your tree’s foliage. The bags can be as long as two inches and are therefore easily spotted by the human eye. Of course, sometimes these bags are mistaken for pine cones.
These caterpillars will suspend themselves from these bags as a place of shelter. The bags they make offer protection from the elements and from predators. When out of their bags, these pests look like other caterpillars and have brown, black, and gray markings.
Bagworm eggs typically hatch between late May and early June. The resulting larvae begin feeding right away. Young bagworms will also begin constructing their own protective casing. Males will emerge from their bags in early fall in search of females.
After mating, the cycle begins all over again with the female laying several hundred eggs in their bag. It’s not uncommon for a property to have repeated issues with bagworms, year after year. The problem will only escalate over time if no treatment of bagworms is utilized.
While a lot of homeowners do spot the bags themselves to identify a bagworm infestation, sometimes bagworm damage is noticeable first.
If your tree or shrub is suddenly declining, it could be due to a pest problem, like the bagworm. This might include browning needles or leaves or an overall thinning canopy.
Bagworms can damage trees in more than one way, which is why finding an effective treatment of bagworms is important.
For one, they use foliage and other tree parts to form their bags. But they also feed directly upon your plant’s foliage. The bags can also cause problems for your trees and shrubs with the silk potentially strangling young branches.
Bagworms generally prefer evergreens like Arborvitae, Pine, Spruce, and Juniper. But they have also been known to attack deciduous trees like Sycamore, Willow, and Honeylocust.
If you want to save your trees and shrubs from this pest, you need to know how to effectively kill bagworms.
If you’ve caught this problem early (which is always optimal), then it might be possible to hand-pick the bagworms off of your tree. This should be done in the fall, winter, or early spring, prior to the eggs (inside of the bags) hatching.
Of course, if you have a lot of bagworms in your trees, this is not going to be a feasible approach. Hiring a plant health care professional and spraying for bagworms will be an effective way to address this problem. A canopy spray treatment can be applied to your trees and shrubs, which will kill bagworms.
If you’ve had a known problem with bagworms in the past, then it’s optimal to get ahead of the issue. Bagworms can easily get stuck in a never-ending cycle of laying new eggs and new generations emerging. You’ll keep seeing bagworms season after season until they finally decimate your tree.
This is why you want to be proactive about partnering with a professional who can help you get rid of bagworms early.
At Limbwalker, bagworm control is part of our Plant Health Care Services. In general, plant health services combine fertilization, pest control, and disease control into a program that will help care for your landscape.
We like to think of these services as a protection in your investment in your landscape. That’s because by treating these plant-destroying pests, you will save yourself a lot of hassles and headaches associated with losing your plants. It’s not only costly to replace plant material but can leave you with a temporary gap in your landscape. Our customized program can also include treatments for other pests and diseases that might be attacking your beloved plants.
When you work with a professional to address pests in your trees and shrubs, you get more than high-quality control options. You also get someone who is always looking out for potential problems on your property. Spotting a problem early can be incredibly valuable when it comes to saving your landscape. Having a pro regularly on your property should give you confidence that you’re in good hands.
While this article was specifically about bagworm treatment, bagworms are certainly not the only pest (or only problem) that can wreak havoc on your landscape. Fortunately, plant health care will cover other problems as well.
We believe that you deserve to be able to enjoy your landscape without having to worry. When you invest in plant health care, you can gain valuable peace of mind.
If you’d like to learn more about plant health care for your Louisville home, get in touch, get your quote, and get back to enjoying your yard.