Tent Caterpillars

[monica123]

Perhaps I did read it wrong, it did work though and that is all that mattered, the little bug-gars are disgusting at best and do one heck of a mess to the poor trees they attack

 

[mystreba]

Wow, thanks for all the information. I picked them all off by hand last time and put them into a mixture of beer and salt water, it was a concoction I found on the internet and it seemed to work. I'm waiting to see if they return this year.

Just to follow up. Last year I had two trees absolutely infested. One, a flowering crabapple, and the other a flowering cherry. As I said I cut out the nests and burned them. This year, I had ZERO nests in the cherry, and two small nests in the crabapple, which I promptly cut out and burned.

In an infestation, a single tree can have over a thousand caterpillars, so picking them off by hand indicates your problem isn't too bad. You may be able to manage just fine the way you're going...

 

[monica123]

That was the only time I had ever had an issue with them so I didn't know how bad it was. By listening to you folks, it seems that mine was not bad at all. I will see what this year brings.

 

[JimmyWeb]

Anyone know the reason why they call them tent caterpillars? If you really want to get rid of them you might just want to go ahead and cut down your weeping willow tree.

What is the most effective way to get rid of tent caterpillars? I have a weeping willow that gets infested with them in the spring.

 

[monica123]

I don't want to do that, the tree was planted when my mom was a kid, I like the tree just not caterpillars, I would love to find a plant they hate so I could plant that to deter them