Check your evergreens at least twice a week for the next two months for bag worms.  One little bag contains 500 eggs.  Cheri has pulled off as many as 150 bags on an eight foot pine.  Taking care of them before they hatch is relatively easy.  Pull the bags off by hand and burn them.  Once those critters hatch you have to spray.  Finding and removing 75,000 of those little gremlins is more work than I can even get Cheri to do by hand!  They will absolutely kill your tree.  Most people see the bags but assume they are pine cones. You have to take a closer look…and often.  You can get sprays that work if they have already hatched.  They prefer pines, but check all your plants.  I found them on all sorts of plants. Last year, I discovered a bagworm momma hung her little bag of eggs on my gutter…50’ from the nearest food source.  Now there's a mother to die for.

Japanese Beetles won’t kill your trees and plants but will eat all the leaves and cost you the normal growth for the year.  They are partial to River Birch and a few other landscape trees…and they love raspberry and blackberry leaves.  There are several sprays available that work marvelously, however I don’t use sprays on my fruits and vegetables. I remove them by hand or give them a little love squeeze with pliers.  When heavily infested I spray them off with water.  Washing your plants with water and dish soap disposes of the scent they give off which attracts more of their friends.  The soap also repels them.  I know my little brothers sure didn’t like it when I had to wash their mouths out with soap.  That was mom’s trick when they picked up a bad word…I found it handy to get them to do my chores.  

Ron Wilson (Sat 10-12 Gardening show on WTVN) says, “If you have to buy the bags that attract and capture Japanese Beetles…buy them and give them to your neighbor”.