http://www.bcnorth.ca/magazine/pages/Diana/lawn/lawn1.htm
Scarifying is done with your lawn mower. The regular cutting blade is replaced with a blade called a Roto-Rake. This is a flat blade with a spring and single tine on each end. This tine digs the thatch out of the lawn. Do not use a bag or chute on your mower, when scarifying. Put the plate over the opening as you would when mulching your lawn. Scarifying should only be done on a dry lawn. It should not be done on a lawn less than three years old.
Dethatching lawn with mower
The area to the left is covered with thatch
Before scarifying, check the depth of your blade. It should be touching the thatch, but not down so far that it would dig into the soil. Mow over a small area, then check to make sure it is not damaging the grass roots. Reset the depth if necessary. Once the depth is adjusted properly, keep mowing without stopping. Each time you stop, the tines tend to dig down too far, making a round trench in your lawn. When mowing with a dethatching blade, overlap the area you have already dethatched, to ensure that no strips are left. When rounding corners, be especially careful of this.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Best practice for controlling bagworm
1. Start by picking the bags off in the Fall (or whenever) and make sure you put them in a bucket of soapy water to drown them. This is the best practice. Those bags will crawl right back up into the tree if you just throw them on the ground. If you put them in a plastic bag and throw it in your trash can, they will crawl out and climb up to the ceiling of your garage.
Each bag will have like a hundred eggs next spring. So it is important to eliminate as much of them as possible.
Pruning the evergreen to open up spaces between branches creates a healthier environment for the tree, lets more predators in. It will decrease the amount of spraying you will need to do.
2. Around May-June, spray Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) around once a week for 3-4 weeks in a row. Get a hose end sprayer for trees--around $15. Rain washes the Bt off. Also breaks down in the sun. Most effective on newly hatched, tiny worms.
It is possible that when it rains all day long, if you went out and sprayed dishwashing soap on the tree, that will help wash off the small bagworms and drown them. I have never done this myself--yet. But theoretically could work.
3. The later in the season you spray, you will need to spray harder chemicals. Like Bayer insect control. Like if you discover in July, the tree is covered with bags, it might be worth a spray with hard chemical. It will be nowhere near as good control as compared to the series of Bt sprays early in the season.
4. July/August you can hand pick small bags. Get up there in a ladder. If you don't pick these smaller bags, they eat all your needles and grow into big bags. It's up to you. For the really high branches that you can't reach, you could use a sprayer with insecticide to sort of sniper shoot those bags beyond your reach. Make sure there is no wind, so the spray doesn't get on you, and you don't breathe it.
5. Fall. Pick whatever bags you can find. The first time you start this program, there can be hundreds of old bags hanging from years past. You might want to remove all these bags, so it is easier to tell when new ones appear.
6. Repeat this process for 2-3 years in a row. Depending how thorough and persistent you are, the faster you will make progress.
7. If you cannot stick with the program, don't even start. The bagworm will win.
Each bag will have like a hundred eggs next spring. So it is important to eliminate as much of them as possible.
Pruning the evergreen to open up spaces between branches creates a healthier environment for the tree, lets more predators in. It will decrease the amount of spraying you will need to do.
2. Around May-June, spray Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) around once a week for 3-4 weeks in a row. Get a hose end sprayer for trees--around $15. Rain washes the Bt off. Also breaks down in the sun. Most effective on newly hatched, tiny worms.
It is possible that when it rains all day long, if you went out and sprayed dishwashing soap on the tree, that will help wash off the small bagworms and drown them. I have never done this myself--yet. But theoretically could work.
3. The later in the season you spray, you will need to spray harder chemicals. Like Bayer insect control. Like if you discover in July, the tree is covered with bags, it might be worth a spray with hard chemical. It will be nowhere near as good control as compared to the series of Bt sprays early in the season.
4. July/August you can hand pick small bags. Get up there in a ladder. If you don't pick these smaller bags, they eat all your needles and grow into big bags. It's up to you. For the really high branches that you can't reach, you could use a sprayer with insecticide to sort of sniper shoot those bags beyond your reach. Make sure there is no wind, so the spray doesn't get on you, and you don't breathe it.
5. Fall. Pick whatever bags you can find. The first time you start this program, there can be hundreds of old bags hanging from years past. You might want to remove all these bags, so it is easier to tell when new ones appear.
6. Repeat this process for 2-3 years in a row. Depending how thorough and persistent you are, the faster you will make progress.
7. If you cannot stick with the program, don't even start. The bagworm will win.
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