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| Photo: Vicky Spelman |
Walking the Yard: Have you walked around your yard just to see how your trees, shrubs and perennials are doing? Make it a habit to really look and observe the rest of your yard: how the trees, shrubs, and the smaller plants are growing.
So often when we buy trees, shrubs, and plants, they are not grown locally, but rather imported from another state or area. They could arrive with an insect or disease that was prevalent in that state or area.
My Crimson Spire Oak trees came from another area. How did I know that? I noticed unusual cocoons hanging off one of them. A diagnosis from our Diagnostic Clinic solved the mystery - they were bagworms.
Bagworm caterpillars make distinctive 1.5 to 2 inch long spindle-shaped bags that can be seen hanging from twigs of a variety of trees and shrubs. Sometimes the bags are mistaken for pine cones or other plant structures.
Bagworms prefer juniper, arborvitae, spruce, pine, and cedar but also attack deciduous trees.
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| Courtesy University of Nebraska |
“This is an insect that gets brought into the state fairly often on infested plants. However, so far I have not heard of an instance where it became established in Colorado”. Whitney Cranshaw, CSU
In my case, I cut the bags off by hand and disposed of them by cutting them in pieces and as a final technique... I squished them.