Image
Jun 5, 2014 9:52 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Deb
Planet Earth (Zone 8b)
Region: Pacific Northwest Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Garden Ideas: Master Level
We're getting a large number of these buggers this year, seems they run in cycles. All the fruit trees and alders are getting hit hard. I had the great (I thought) idea to cut them out of the chokecherry and toss the webs into the chicken yard. Turns out the hens made a beeline for the immature cherries but wouldn't even touch the caterpillars. Now I'll have to sneak in there when the rooster is elsewhere and retrieve all the webs before the caterpillars migrate over to the little mulberry sapling in the middle of the chicken yard! Guess I'll have to burn them. Is everyone getting them this year? Wondering how wide the range of infestation is.
I want to live in a world where the chicken can cross the road without its motives being questioned.
Image
Jun 5, 2014 1:55 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
A row of bushes at work have a heavy infestation, but I haven't seen them elsewhere.

Some decades ago they ate a lot of trees half-bare in Connecticut.

I thought that if I burnt their protective web, birds or something else would eat them. Were you implying that they can crawl to another spot and re-build a nest?
Image
Jun 5, 2014 4:02 PM CST
Thread OP
Name: Deb
Planet Earth (Zone 8b)
Region: Pacific Northwest Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Garden Ideas: Master Level
They are thick up in the Stanwood area and perhaps more so on Camano Island. When we were camping at the State Park over Memorial weekend, they dropped on us out of trees or were just found on our clothes. Creepy. I have no idea if they will crawl away and rebuild, but don't want to put my little mulberry sapling at risk.
I want to live in a world where the chicken can cross the road without its motives being questioned.
Image
Jun 5, 2014 5:17 PM CST
Name: Rick Corey
Everett WA 98204 (Zone 8a)
Sunset Zone 5. Koppen Csb. Eco 2f
Frugal Gardener Garden Procrastinator I helped beta test the first seed swap Plant and/or Seed Trader Seed Starter Region: Pacific Northwest
Photo Contest Winner: 2014 Avid Green Pages Reviewer Garden Ideas: Master Level Garden Sages I was one of the first 300 contributors to the plant database! I helped plan and beta test the plant database.
I agree.

I used to hike into the woods far away from traffic noise. You could hear them chewing! That was back in Connecticut, in the '70s or early '80s.

Years, not temperatures.
Image
Jun 7, 2014 9:27 AM CST
Name: Tom
Nooksack, WA (Zone 8a)
Ponds
I've got them on my apple and cherry trees. Not overwhelmed with them but enough to worry me. I cut some of the lower branch ends off that had the nests and put them in a coffee can with some diesel and some of the higher ones I used a small propane soldering torch and lit them up but had hot little worm carcases falling on me and didn't make the tree look good either but I think I have them under control. I didn't want to use any insecticides because my bees are only a few feet away.
Image
Jun 7, 2014 9:40 AM CST
Thread OP
Name: Deb
Planet Earth (Zone 8b)
Region: Pacific Northwest Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Garden Ideas: Master Level
I've been doing mechanical control as well - cutting off the infected branch and burning it. We are not as hard-hit as Camano Island, and the caterpillars seem to enjoy the native alders as much as my fruit trees. Rick, I was in north Everett yesterday (Sorticulture) and noticed a lot of webs on some shrubs by the roadside, but not so many in trees. So, perhaps Camano is the epicenter and it gradually lessens the further away you get.
I want to live in a world where the chicken can cross the road without its motives being questioned.
You must first create a username and login before you can reply to this thread.
  • Started by: Bonehead
  • Replies: 5, views: 849
Member Login:

( No account? Join now! )