Category: Pest Management

Remove weeds from your lawn before they set seed. You can use a trowel or asparagus knife to remove weeds like dandelion, plantain, and clover if there are only a few of them. If you don’t have time to pull the weeds, spot treat weedy areas with a selective herbicide for broadleaf weeds. Do not spray on a windy day and be sure to use a sprayer that produces a coarse spray rather than a fine mist to avoid drift that is harmful to other plants in your landscape. You can also prepare a small amount of herbicide and use a disposable sponge and disposable rubber glove to wipe the herbicide on the weed foliage.

Check wild cherry trees and apples for Eastern tent caterpillars. During the day, the fuzzy black caterpillars rest in silken webs in the crotches between branches. Remove the nests, caterpillars and all. A stick or pole may be helpful for removing nests that are out of reach.

If you’re doing some spring mulching, be sure to do the job right. Use no more than two inches of mulch and keep it a few inches away from the trunks of trees to prevent decay of the bark. Avoid covering the crowns of perennials or shrubs with mulch, since it encourages diseases such as Southern blight.

Instead of purchasing beneficial insects, conserve those that nature sends your way. Spray pesticides only when it is absolutely necessary, and treat only the plants that are being attacked by pests or diseases. Whenever possible, use a reduced-risk pesticide such as horticultural oil, insecticidal soap, or neem seed extract to combat pests and diseases. These pesticides have minimal impact on beneficial insects. Look for insect predators when you note a burgeoning insect problem; they may be working to bring it under control for you. You can avoid using pesticides that harm beneficial insects by exploring other control options. Physically remove pest insects from their host plants with a jet of water from your garden hose, or hand pick them into a bucket of soapy water. Be sure that you are providing your landscape plants with the conditions they need to thrive; healthy plants are less likely to be subject to pest and disease problems. When shopping for new plants, be sure to select pest and disease resistant varieties whenever you can.

Resist the temptation to rush spring growth with heavy applications of fertilizer. Lawns, if fertilized now, will be much more prone to disease when hot, humid weather arrives. Heavily fertilized trees and shrubs are better hosts for aphids, scale insects, and diseases such as fire blight. Make a mental note to fertilize in the autumn when most plants are making new root growth and are best able to use the nutrients you apply. Spring flowering bulbs are an important exception to this rule. Fertilize them as the flowers fade to promote healthy foliage that will result in a bigger bulb and more flowers next spring.

Check azaleas, andromeda, and rhododendrons for lace bug hatchlings. Look at last year’s foliage; if you notice yellow stipples on the leaves, it is likely that last year’s lace bugs laid eggs on the underside of the leaves. The black eggs are well camouflaged by the tarry black excrement left by the adult lace bugs. It is easiest to detect them using the beat test. Place a white sheet of paper under the foliage and tap the plant vigorously. Young lace bugs are black, spiny, and no larger than a pinhead. If you detect large numbers of them, spray infested plants with horticultural oil, insecticidal soap, or a pesticide containing acephate.

Ovulinia petal blight may cause azalea flowers to turn tan and mushy if rainy weather coincides with their bloom. Apply a fungicide labelled for petal blight to your azaleas when the flower buds have begun to show color. The life of the flowers may be prolonged by as much as two weeks with this treatment.

Begin monitoring conifers for spruce spider mites. These small, dark arachnids are active in cool weather and can be found on pines, hemlocks, arborvitae, and spruce and are especially damaging to Norway and dwarf Alberta spruce. Look for stippling on the needles and webbing in between the needles on the underside of the branches. A simple beat test is also a good way to detect their presence. Tap a branch over a white sheet of paper and look for tiny, slow moving, yellowish green mites. Also look for faster moving predatory mites or tiny, round black ladybird beetles that feed on the mites. If a beat test reveals more than twenty mites per beat, and you do not see predatory mites or ladybird beetles, you should treat your tree with horticultural oil or insecticidal soap.

Begin checking your dwarf white pines for white pine tip dwarf mites. Unlike most mites, white pine tip dwarf mites like cool weather and are most active in early spring. They cause older needles to become yellow and drop, and, if the tree is severely infested, it can become completely defoliated just before new foliage emerges in the spring. Beat test your trees weekly in early spring by tapping a branch on a piece of paper. Using a magnifying glass or 10x hand lens, look for very small, translucent yellowish mites moving across the paper. If you see more than fifty mites per beat test, you should treat the tree with an acaracide like neem oil. If you are designing a new landscape or are making changes in your current scheme, consider planting a resistant species like Japanese white pine.

Practicing good sanitation is an environmentally sound and effective means of controlling disease and insect pests in your landscape. Take the time to dispose of debris that may harbor overwintering pests. When replacing problem plants or adding new plants to your landscape plan, consider using pest-resistant varieties.

March is a good month for tending to your lawn. When reseeding, select pest- and disease- resistant tall fescue. Rake up debris and dead leaves that have accumulated during the winter months. Sharpen mower blades and start mowing early to discourage annual weeds that will be going to seed. Know the proper mowing height of the turf you are planting. Bluegrass and red fescue should be mowed to 2-3″, tall fescue to 2-4″, and zoysia and Bermuda grass to 1″.

You can reduce the need for insecticides in your landscape by using plants that attract beneficial insects. Ladybird beetles, hover flies, lacewings, spiders, and parasitic wasps are natural enemies of plant damaging insects like aphids, mites, whitefly, scale, and thrips.

Plant Attracts
common yarrow ladybird beetles, wasps, hover flies
coriander lacewings, hover flies, braconid wasps, spiders
cosmos lacewings, overflies, braconid wasps, spiders
fennel lacewings, ladybird beetles, hover flies, spiders
Queen Anne’s lace lacewings, ladybird beetles, hover flies, braconid wasps
spearmint lacewings, ladybird beetles, hover flies, spiders
sweet alyssum hover flies, spiders
hover flies, braconid wasps

Don’t let the first warm days of spring tempt you to put your houseplants outdoors. Tropical plants are easily injured by temperatures below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, so wait until the weather has settled to move them.

As temperatures begin to warm in late winter, inspect your hemlocks for the presence of eriophyid rust mites. These plant sucking arachnids can cause needles to turn bronze and drop prematurely. To monitor these insects, place a sheet of white paper under a branch and tap vigorously. With a hand lens or magnifying glass, look for tiny, yellow, wedge-shaped mites on the paper. Also look for larger, fast-moving predatory mites that may be feeding on the pesty eriophyid mite. If you do not see any predatory mites, and if the beat test count is 50 or higher, you may want to treat the hemlock with insecticidal soap or horticultural oil. Only use horticultural oil if temperatures will be above freezing for 48 hours following application.

Wood ashes from your fireplace or wood stove are a rich source of potassium for the plants in your garden. Potassium is a major plant nutrient that is easily leached from the soil by rain. By following a few simple guidelines, you can do something good for your plants and practice an effective recycling technique. First, have your soil tested for pH level. Wood ashes are alkaline and should not be added to soil that is already testing in the alkaline range of 5.8 to 6.5. Do not use ashes from chemically treated or lead-painted wood, as these could harm your plants. Also, avoid using wood ashes around acid-loving plants like blueberries, azaleas, and rhododendrons. Apply the ashes evenly, and if possible, mix them into the soil. An average cord of wood will yield about twenty pounds of ash, which may be applied to a thousand square feet of soil. In flower beds, a good rule of thumb is one-half to one pound of ash per year per plant.

Inspect the twigs of your apple, crabapple, and cherry trees for the egg masses of the eastern tent caterpillar. The small, shiny black masses resemble Styrofoam and contain from 150 to 400 eggs. They are found near the ends of branches and can easily be pruned out. The caterpillars usually hatch in early March when the buds begin to open, spin silken tents in the crotch of the trees, and then emerge to begin feeding on the leaves. Large populations can be devastating and may defoliate the tree. Newly planted trees are especially vulnerable to stress from defoliation. If you miss the egg masses, hand picking is the best control of eastern tent caterpillars. Remove the webs by scraping them with gloved hands or by twirling them onto a stick and disposing of the nest.

Take the time to remove winter annuals like chickweed, wintercress, and annual bluegrass before they go to seed. Hand removal now will help reduce weed growth in the spring, and will cut down on the need for herbicides.

If you receive a houseplant for Valentine’s Day, it is a good idea to quarantine it from your other houseplants for a couple of weeks. It may host a harmful, unnoticed insect population that could spread to other houseplants in your home. At the end of two weeks, inspect your new plant carefully before placing it in its new location. If you discover a pest problem, such as aphids, whiteflies, or mites, treat your plant with 1% horticultural oil or insecticidal soap.

February is a good time to remove tree branches that are crowded, broken, diseased, or dead. Also, remove suckers to improve the tree’s vigor. If you suspect a tree is affected by a vascular disease, it is a good idea to sterilize your pruning tools by dipping them in a solution of disinfectant or bleach between cuts. This will prevent spreading the disease to other parts of the tree.