Caterpillars...

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...are slowly consuming most of the leaves on a ten year old oak in my front yard. I can hear them up there munching, and the leaf fragments drop all over my wife's car.

The worst part is, the tree overhangs my front walk and they crap all over it in a mighty fashion. I'm in a rented house for a couple of years, so I don't know if a flamethrower and/or chainsaw are on the HOA list of approved remedies.
 
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Here ya go
7d1b068496d51c0e031ecd6ea5e0aeef.jpg


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Liquid sevin in a backpack sprayer.
I saw something two weeks ago I've not seen before. The HOA actually had a guy out spraying all the shrubs and landscaping in the neighborhood with a trailer mounted tank and gas powered pump.

Trouble is, the little beasts are not only in some low hanging branches (~8' up), but the majority look to be pretty much out of range. They certainly would be out of range of my Stihl backpack sprayer that I "conveniently" sold when I sold my house last month.
 
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Rented house?

Sounds like a call to the landlord is in order. You can sit back and drink a cold beverage while he hires some dude to come fix it.

I figure this plague that's been visited upon my landlord's tree will depart soon enough. I just have thirty minutes to kill before I pick up the missus, and decided to bitch about these cursed little creatures.
 
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I figure this plague that's been visited upon my landlord's tree will depart soon enough. I just have thirty minutes to kill before I pick up the missus, and decided to bitch about these cursed little creatures.

Yeah, another week or so and it will stop when they cocoon up. Then you'll be besieged by butterflies a month or so later.
 
Cigarette butt tea works on house plants I've always wanted to try it on a tree or bush but haven't. You collect up a (in this case a whole) bunch of butts and soak them in water overnight to make a stinky disgusting tea that you water the plants with a few days before you bring them in the house, the bugs and things are smart and know the nicotine is a poison so they leave . Ive thought about trying it with chewing tobacco but haven't.
 
The caterpillars spent several weeks eating 99.9% of the leaves on this young oak. They ignored 97% of the other various maples, pen oaks, etc. in the neighborhood, but completely consumed this one. They crapped everywhere under the tree on my walkway and drive, and then wandered around my front porch for a week, then vanished. I killed a bunch of them, but I don't think I got a third of them. No tents to be seen anywhere within 100 yards of here.

IMG_0250.JPG
 
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Don't you have a landlord you can yell at to fix it for you? That's supposed to be one of the perks to renting!
I do. That's why I only take pictures and complain to y'all about it.

Don't they make something you can water the tree with that kills them when they eat the leaves
They actually had a guy with a trailer, tank, and gas powered sprayer a few weeks before the critters got here, but he sprayed the shrubs, not the trees, and like I said, most the trees were largely unscathed. I happened to see a real estate listing for this place that's still floating out there on-line that looked just like my picture which suggests to me they'll be back next summer.

If anybody knows about a remedy like this I'd love to know about it . I'm one of those DIY tenants
 
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I think you just have to get them early next year. Get some Malathion or whatever on the end of a hose, and pre-treat before they can get all the way up there. Soap and water also is apparently devastating to caterpillars.

Maybe set yourself a reminder on July 1 to spray...?
That tree is as tall as this two story house. I don't know that I can get all of it. Especially once it's in full leaf.
 
This is definately an HOA thing. Get on them about it, because you can be sure they'd geton you about any infraction.

If they need to hire a guy with a cherry picker to get the upper branches, that's what they need to do.
 
This stuff. Works amazingly well. You don't spray the caterpillars, you spray the leaves around the tent. They eat it, it turns off their digestive system, they die.

It doesn't last long after a rain so you need to reapply.
 

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This stuff. Works amazingly well. You don't spray the caterpillars, you spray the leaves around the tent. They eat it, it turns off their digestive system, they die.

It doesn't last long after a rain so you need to reapply.
No tents with these critters, but you could hear them chewing the leaves when standing under the tree. They were all over it.
 
Might not do you much good this year, but get yourself a bottle of Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub. Follow the directions, and do a root soak around the tree. Bayer advanced is a systemic insecticide that will kill most any insect that tries to eat your tree. Depending on the formulation, a single treatment is good for 1-2 years.

The good news? An oak tree can withstand a full defoliation with few long term effects. Especially this late in the year, it already has most of the food it needs stored in its roots to grow new leaves next spring.
 
Might not do you much good this year, but get yourself a bottle of Bayer Advanced Tree & Shrub. Follow the directions, and do a root soak around the tree. Bayer advanced is a systemic insecticide that will kill most any insect that tries to eat your tree. Depending on the formulation, a single treatment is good for 1-2 years.

The good news? An oak tree can withstand a full defoliation with few long term effects. Especially this late in the year, it already has most of the food it needs stored in its roots to grow new leaves next spring.
Excellent. Thanks. I am seeing a lot of different variations of this product. Can you recommend one of these?https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=bayer+advanced+tree+and+shrub

The tree is in an area about 10' x 20" and surrounded by driveways and sidewalks. The drip line doesn't reach much beyond that.
 
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I figure this plague that's been visited upon my landlord's tree will depart soon enough. I just have thirty minutes to kill before I pick up the missus, and decided to bitch about these cursed little creatures.

This, grasshoppers, is the pinnacle of curmudgeonhood, the essence of the Guiding Princinple of Curmudgeonism. Complaining not as a means to some deluded end, but for the pure, simple perfection of the complaint itself.

Fieldgrade is a true master.

[bows respectfully]
 
This, grasshoppers, is the pinnacle of curmudgeonhood, the essence of the Guiding Princinple of Curmudgeonism. Complaining not as a means to some deluded end, but for the pure, simple perfection of the complaint itself.

Fieldgrade is a true master.

[bows respectfully]
The reality is I haven't yet fully embraced my tenant status.
I fix things, whether they are mine, or a busted screen door latch on a rented beach house.
I'm fixin' to fix these caterpillars next.
 
No tents with these critters, but you could hear them chewing the leaves when standing under the tree. They were all over it.


If you can hear them munching then it will work. You're spraying their food source to kill them not the caterpillars themselves.
 
As soon as they show up next summer...
Respirator
Backpack leaf blower.
5lbs of Sevin dust.

Apply respirator.
Crank up powerful leaf blower.
Open Sevin dust.
Stand under tree, pull full throttle on leaf blower and lock in full(if it's a goodern it has this feature)
Aim at leaf canopy and guff that Sevin dust into the intake.

That'll get them....and likely treat other neighbors trees depending on wind direction.
Midnight is a good time to do this, while the neigh....ER...caterpillars be asleep.
 
The best treatment for all kinds of caterpillars is Bt. Dipel and Thuricide are 2 common brands. It is a bacteria that stops the nasties from eating within a few hours. Perfectly safe for humans and pets. It is rated for use of vegetables (think tomato hornworm) and the veggies can be consumed the same day. Will not harm birds that eat the caterpillars.

Bt comes as both a liquid and a dust. For trees, I use the dust form and my leaf blower. I take the second section of blower tube off so it is short. Then hold a hand full of dust under the air flow and let it suck up a cloud of dust.
 
...are slowly consuming most of the leaves on a ten year old oak in my front yard. I can hear them up there munching, and the leaf fragments drop all over my wife's car.

The worst part is, the tree overhangs my front walk and they crap all over it in a mighty fashion. I'm in a rented house for a couple of years, so I don't know if a flamethrower and/or chainsaw are on the HOA list of approved remedies.
Go fishing. bass, crappe, brim all love them.
 
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