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I have a confession to make: I am a tree hugger. This time of year, most of my Plaza Midwood neighbors are also tree huggers, because to affix a cankerworm band, you've got to reach your arms around the tree and make it snug.
If you don't know what cankerworms are, you probably haven't lived here very long. In 2007, the city conducted aerial spraying of BT, an organic insecticide targeted at cankerworms only, and harmless to people or other wildlife. However, cankerworms are prodigious reproducers. One female can lay hundreds of eggs, spawning hungry green worms capable of shredding a tree canopy within hours of emergence.
Cankerworms are built to eat, and for something both sightless and wingless, they have an uncanny knack for finding new food sources. They travel on silken threads, allowing the wind to blow them into the next tree. Nothing green is safe. If a cankerworm cannot munch on a willow oak, the azalea or Japanese maple below it will do just as well.
Trees may be able to expend great energy to put out another set of leaves, but this is more difficult for young plants. Add to this the stress of summer drought, and you can see the result in dead branches all over Charlotte. Dead branches are dangerous as they have a nasty habit of falling off the tree - sometimes when someone is beneath them. For all these reasons, cankerworm banding is practically a matter of public health, which is why some neighborhoods, like Plaza Midwood, organize tree-banding brigades to band trees for those physically unable to so themselves.
In case you did not clip and save my article on this subject from last year, here are tips from a veteran tree-bander. A successful tree band is three layers:
Fluffy quilter's batting cut in about 8-inch-wide strips, form-fitted against the trunk to leave no gaps.
Roofing paper cut slightly wider (about 10 inches) and fitted snug against the batting.
Tanglefoot, a super-sticky goo that is spread thickly all around the lower half of the roofing paper in at least a 5-inch band.
There is an additional, optional step, which is to apply duct tape to the top and bottom of the band. This will keep squirrels from picking out the batting from behind the roofing paper.
Steps one and two can be done right now, but don't put on the tanglefoot until the temperature drops. If you apply tanglefoot too early, it will get clogged with leaves and flying insects unfortunate enough to land on it. Then the cankerworm females emerging from the ground in cold weather will climb over this layer of detritus on their march toward the top of your tree.
Tanglefoot is sticky, no matter what the weather, but it may be harder to spread in cooler weather - a few blasts of hot air with a hair dryer can soften it to spreading consistency. Wear old clothes, use disposable rubber gloves and a plastic spatula, because tanglefoot does not come off what it gets on.
Check your traps regularly. If they are clogged, apply another layer of tanglefoot above the lower layer. Finally, remember if you hug your trees this fall, they will feel loved all year long.
