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Don’t Let Insects Bug Your Trees — Call In Our Arborists For Expert Advice

Insect Removal

Do your trees have discoloured, spotted, wilted, or otherwise weary-looking leaves? Are the leaves looking barren, uneven, or even munched down to the stems? Are your trees looking rough, spotty, or generally unhealthy, but without a clear explanation as to why? If so, you might have an infestation of harmful insects — and if that’s the case, you’ll need some expert advice as to how to save your trees from an early demise.

Various breeds of mites, aphids, leafminers, moths (see the Edmonton the satin moth, pictured here), beetles, grubs, borers, and caterpillars can cause some severe damage to your plants. If you’re not an insect specialist and able to directly observe the bugs go about their destructive business, you can sometimes tell what kind of problem you have by observing the effects.

“Bad” insects can be roughly broken down into three groups: chewers, suckers, and borers. Chewers nibble or downright feast on the leafy parts of your tree — in really troublesome cases, they’ll quickly skeletonize an area. Suckers insert a proboscis and extract the vital juices from flowers, fruit, branches, and leaves, sucking out your tree’s life like tiny vampires. Borers burrow and lay eggs beneath the bark, harming your tree from the inside out. While each category can cause a lot of problems, it’s important to remember that not all insects are harmful; in fact, if you destroyed all living insects on your trees, you’d be hurting your leafy investments much more than you’d be helping them. For these reasons and more, you need the kind of expert opinion that we’re happy to offer you (all year round!).

When property owners spot the harmful effects of insects on their trees, they often assume that only the insects are to blame; in other words, everything would be okay if only those pesky bugs hadn’t shown up! However, this fails to take into account why the insects have targeted your tree, and fails to understand the underlying causes for your tree’s susceptibility.

Having an insect infestation is usually a sign that your tree needs help in other areas. Just like too much exertion, lack of sleep, an improper diet, and other factors will run us down and make us more vulnerable to colds, if your trees are stressed, haven’t been pruned properly, have a pathogen, or they’ve taken a major hit from a recent storm, they’re using a lot of their energy to heal up and repair themselves. In this compromising state, they’re not in top form to fight off the invading insect forces. Luckily, our expert arborists can help you restore your trees to their healthiest state, whether through nutrients, fertilizers, proper trimming and pruning regimens, or other green boosts, allowing them to defend themselves against those annoying, insidious, and destructive bugs.

Don’t let insects get under your skin (or bark)! As most ISA-certified arborists will tell you, the best medication is prevention, so give us a call or send us an email and we’ll set up a time to inspect your trees. Equipped with our professional opinion, you’ll know how to handle any problem, whether it crawls, burrows, flies, or creeps!