Friday, July 15, 2011

No Time to be Squeemish - Pine Sawfly

It has been unusually hot this summer and I've spent little time in my sunny main garden, preferring instead to work in the back shade area where I am planning some new projects.

It's still hot but far less humid so today after work I ventured into the sun to do a little deadheading. One of the shrubs in the sunny garden is my lovely little mungo pine which is tucked into a section by the small pond, just to the left of the image above, in the blog header.

Lately I had noticed some browning on Mr Mungo but assumed it was from the extremely hot weather we've been haivnng.

But.....

As I wandered over there for a closer look...horrors... I saw that dozens (I mean many dozens) of Pine Sawfly larvae were munching en masse on several different clusters of needles. Many needles had two larvae attached, face to face, enveloping the entire needle. AGH! Looking even closer I saw that many branches were devoid of needles and several sections were brown and dead looking.


Well most all of the larvae have now been sunk in a bucket of soapy water, along with a few Japanese beetles from the nearby roses.

What a nasty job.

I'm sure I did not get them all so I'll have to keep a close watch on Mr My Mungo who now has many bare and brown sections.

Hopefully his needles will come back. Does anyone know if they will??

2 comments:

Jess Greene said...

Glad you noticed! That looks awful!

Carol Soules said...

yeah...the poor little tree is really damaged. I;m not sure ow mungo pines are at reviving themselves..... Need to do some research I guess. Take a look at yours when you get home.