
Beneficial Insects: Fighting Bad Insects with Good Insects
Beneficial Insects are a category of insects that provide valued services such as pollination and pest control. As homeowners are becoming more environmentally conscious, beneficial insect releases are rising in popularity. Just this week we performed Beneficial Insect Releases on 3 properties; however, many homeowners still have never heard of controlling pests with beneficial insects. In this article, we will cover how the beneficial releases work, the benefits of these releases, and why your property…

Lecanium Scale – Signs, Symptoms, & Treatment
Lecanium scale is a group of common soft scale insects that feed on the sap from shade trees and woody ornamentals. If left uncontrolled, one or two major infestations can kill your tree. Currently, these insects are in their crawler stage feeding on the sap of the tree’s leaves. They will stay in this stage throughout the summer damaging your trees. As fall approaches, the scale will move back to the branches and develop a…

Spider Mites – Tiny Bugs That Cause Big Problems
Spider mites are a common enemy of anyone who cares about their landscape plants. Classified as arachnids, these tiny bugs are less than 1/20 inch long when fully mature and look like moving dots to the naked eye. Despite their size, our arborists warn that mites will start being a huge problem for homeowners in the next few weeks. Their ability to rapidly reproduce allows large populations to develop fast and severely harm your plants…

Lace Bugs On Azaleas
Lace bugs are small 1/4″ long insect with wings that damage plants. They are named after their flat lace-like wings. There are many different kinds of lace bugs but the ones we see the most in the DC Metro area are Azalea lace bugs, Stephanitis pyrioides. Our Arborists recommend that homeowners keep a close eye on their Azaleas since signs of Lace Bugs should start appearing in the next few weeks. Azalea lace bugs…

Tree Scale Scare In Northern Va, Maryland, and DC
Tree Scale On Your Northern Va, Maryland, or DC Tree? If you have been noticing small little bumps on your trees and shrubs branches and stems you might have a tree scale infestation. Our Arborists warn that Northern Va, Maryland, and DC are getting hit hard by scale this spring. Earlier today our Arborist saw a whole line of neighborhood trees in McLean suffering from bad tree scale infestations. In this article we will talk about…