Pests

WebwormsYou're probably starting to see these, maybe even in your own yard. For Dennis Patton's advice on fall webworms, take a look at the new Tip of the Week. - Craig

I know this title sounds like a Clint Eastwood movie, but a comparison can be made to one of August’s most visible insects and that is the fall webworm.

Let me break it down for you, continuing the epic Italian spaghetti western film theme. I will start with the bad news and end with the good.

The Bad – Fall webworms are a colony or group feeder. Hundreds of caterpillars munch away leaves of numerous trees including walnut, hickory, birch, oak, ash and crabapple. Their feeding will strip the tree’s branches of its leaves.

WebwormsThe Ugly – These worms all live inside a thick webbing that engulfs the branches. As the larvae feed they enlarge the web, or bag, to include more foliage. The result is an ugly web clinging over the end of the branch.

I have a large (24x30)overgrown perennial garden that i am wanting to renovate this fall and once i dig up what i want to keep i was wondering, what is the best way to kill everything else off? I'm thinking ,whack everything down to the ground and spray with a vegetation killer. I want to start over with a bare area and try some ornamental grasses and flowering shrubs this time around.Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you! Mark

Thanks for the picture of the japaneses beetle. My insects don't look quite like that. Mine resemble what I call a "June Bug". They seem to eat only at night. I thought that the June Bug was a form of the grub worm also. Sounds like I've confused my predators.

Bob

Thanks for the excellent picture of a Japanese beetle, and for the many other great pictures you have provided as well! A couple of years ago, I had a heavy infestation of ladybug-like beetles (except the spots seemed different) on many of my plants. I didn't want to spray an insecticide, but they were obviously devouring all of the leaves (unlike ladybugs, which eat the bad insects, these WERE the bad insects). I spent a few hours online searching for an ID to differentiate between ladybugs and all of their look-alikes, but just ran out of time before I found the culprits, although a preliminary guess was asparagus beetle (and also elm leaf beetles, which seemed much less damaging).

Japanese beetleThere's a discussion in a blog post lower on the page. One of the questions is identifying whether the pest in your yard is actually the Japanese beetle or something else. Here's a good photo from lgseeds.com. -- Craig

By LEE REICH
For The Associated Press

In an ideal world, pesticides would never be needed in the garden. In the real world, they occasionally are.

That doesn’t mean you need harsh chemicals; pesticide is anything that kills a pest, from DDT, which kills just about every insect, to baking soda, which is effective against certain fungus diseases. If you decide a pesticide is absolutely needed, choose and spray the material with utmost care to avoid harm to the environment, to yourself, even to the very plants that you are trying to protect.

And don’t think that you can be slipshod just because you are spraying something “natural,” such as rotenone. Rotenone was used by primitive fisherman as fish poison (makes for easy fishing), and is still deadly to fish if it seeps into any stream or pond. Rotenone is also quite toxic to you and me, more so than Malathion, even though this common chemical pesticide has a more ominous sound.

They're called cicada killers. Check the Tip of the Week on the left to read about them. -- CraigCicada killer

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No…it’s a cicada killer! These large wasps are 1-1/3 to 1-5/8-inches long and fly slowly above the ground. They have a black body with yellow marks across the thorax and abdomen. Similar to the red-caped super hero, the cicada killers wings are reddish-orange.

The large wasps can be quite intimidating if they fly in your direction, but no fear, they don’t sting! In fact, they usually ignore people altogether. Males may act aggressively if they feel they are threatened, but are unable to sting. Females can sting, but are so passive that they rarely do. Even if the female does sting, the pain is less than that of smaller wasps such as the yellow jacket or paper wasp, and is similar to the sting of a sweat bee.

Moles are tunneling all over our yard and are really destroying it. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them?
Thanks.

Bagworms are out in big number this year so keep an eye out for them. I was surprised to find them covering one of my evergreens. Yes, even I have plant problems!

:) Dennis - Johnson County Extension

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been noticing lots of small webs about 6 inches in diameter on my shrubs and bedding plants. They don't look like typical spider webs because they are thicker and parallel to the ground. Will the pests that are creating these hurt my plants? And what, if anything, should I do about it?

By Nancy Brachey
McClatchy Newspapers

Q. I had two large ivy beds in my front yard and decided I wanted all ivy removed as many weeds where taking over. It was a massive undertaking. My workers dug up everything, sprayed with weed killer, then spread pine straw.
Now that hot weather is here, weeds are back. I’ve tried three different sprays, and nothing is working. It kills for a while, and then weeds are back. I hate using all these chemicals. Is laying a black tarp over the ground my only solution to conquer these weeds?

A. I cannot tell you that you will conquer weeds. It just takes persistence. The weed population is huge, and they spread by various means, including roots that weed-killers fail to eradicate, wind and birds.

BagwormsIf you have, now is the time to do something about it. These are bagworms, their populations may be going up and it's getting late in the season to control them. For advice, see Dennis Patton's new Tip of the Week to the left. - Craig

It is one of the most easily identified insect found in this area, the bagworm. Bagworms are out in full force this year, munching their way through many landscape plants. Bagworms form a silken bag that’s mixed with plant parts and range in size up to a couple of inches in length.

Bagworms will feed on many different plant materials, but their favorite tends to be junipers and arborvitae. The young, worm-like insects eat the foliage resulting in an initial browning of the area followed by death of the plant under severe feeding. Understanding the bagworm's life cycle is important for control.

Whenever I go out in my backyard (and only my backyard) to garden I get a serious bite or two from either fleas or chiggers. Other than covering myself with foul-smelling deet spray is there anything safe for dogs and wildlife that I can do out on the lawn to control whatever it is that's out there? For now, the whole area is off-limits for guests. Thanks!

How effective are the deer-repellent sprays to use on flowers and other vegetation? The combination rotten egg/deer urine smell is so horrible the cure might be worse than the problem, but do they really keep deer away?

I just found a small praying mantis in my butterfly garden. Is he going to eat my butterfly eggs/larvae? or should I be glad to have him? I haven't seen any caterpillers yet this year on my fennel, parsley or dill. Is this why?

From Derrick:

The slugs are attacking -- again. I have basil plants, which I'd hoped would have been immune because they're in pots. No such luck, as the slimy trails attest. Does beer really work? Salt?

From Debra:

Does this help?

Closer look