BAGWORM ALERT, Anne Arundel County and Mid-Maryland

Now is the time to find bagworms! The bags start off as very small silken containers on the underside of the stems on the trees. Most often the bagworms infest Leyland Cypress, Japanese maple and spruce (all varieties). Good description; the bags look like small pine cones! The bags are very difficult to tear open: they are silk!

How do you deal with bagworms? Some people simply pull the bag off and drop
the bag into a container of soapy water. This is not the best way! When the bag
is pulled off, there is a thread of the silk that holds the bagworm on the branch
that is left behind. The silken thread will stay behind and will girdle the tip of the branch: this silk will cause the tip to die off! There are therefore two problems
caused by the bagworm: the foliage that is eaten by the worm (from now until
mid-August) and the silken thread that is left behind on the tip of the branch
that can girdle the tip and cause the tip to die off. If you are going to do the job
yourself you must cut the bag off with a knife or use shears. You should never
just pull the worm off of the branch. Then drop the bag into the soapy water!!
You will have to do this for several weeks as the bags will be of varying size and
will continue to increase in size. The best time to deal with bagworms has long
passed: a dormant oil spray applied in late winter or very early spring will keep
the worms at bay.

You will also need to clean up the area under the infected trees and dispose of
the debris. Well, just what do you do if the tree is large and heavily infected or
there are just too many trees for you to deal with? There are sprays available,
most use Bt, a bacteria spray harmless to pets and children. Tall trees or too
many infected trees to deal with? No sprayer? Or no sprayer strong enough?
Contact us for assistance, we can spray now and offer you a tree and shrub plan to prevent future problems.

Moss in Anne Arundel County Maryland

We do get calls frequently in regards to the presence of moss. We suppose there are choices: learn to love the moss, after all moss doesn’t need to be cut, trimmed, poisoned or even fertilized, hate the moss and try to rid the property of moss, or simply put sell the home and move. However, most of us want to be rid of the moss!

Trying to remove moss from the property is something like trying to catch a pound of smoke. Just where does one start? Let’s take a look at the property. Is the property low and wet, shaded, and has a pH level on the low end of 5? If the former is true then your property is a prime area for moss. Can moss be found out in the open? Yes, but it is not likely. Mosses, like most everything else, have many varieties; there are over 15,000 species in the world. Moss does not have a vascular system or traditional roots but do have rhizoids.

Enough of the minutiae on moss! What do you do to rid the property of moss? First, get a soil test professionally done. Second, address the moisture issues. Third, reduce the amount of shade and fourth, add lime to the soil to increase the pH to create a soil type conducive to grass growth.

Sounds like more trouble than it is worth. To most of us, yes it is a lot of trouble. There is a much better method available. If you have a moss issue and want help: contact us at BOG Lawn care and we will come out to your property and do a free analysis of the situation and begin you on the way to a beautiful lawn.

WEEDS!!!! WEEDS!!!! WEEDS!!!! WEEDS!!!!

Want to have some fun? Look at the names of the following: Giant Foxtail, Creeping Bentgrass, Goosegrass, Green Foxtail, Large Crabgrass, Smooth crabgrass (oh, come on!), Nimbleweed (kidding right!?), Quackgrass (my favorite!), Yellow foxtail, and the grand daddy of them all: annual bluegrass. Annual Bluegrass is found in every country ! Talk about tough!

The message, rather subtle: all of these are weeds, all are ugly, all are uneven in growth and all of them are very difficult to get out of the lawn once they are established. The names just are so melodic that it just stirs the imagination. Who comes up with these? Guess what PhD's are earned on the knowledge of just one of the weeds! The researcher who comes up with a cure all for just one of the list will be working for Bayer in a flash!

What do we as homeowners do? Well one choice is just let the weeds win! Not a very
intelligent choice, but a choice nonetheless. Why do we even care about having a lawn of just tall fescue? Guess what tall fescue is technically a weed! We care because the lawn just plain looks better! Selfish, maybe..but not really. Tall fescues produce oxygen the other weeds do not. Tall fescues hold the soil nicely, the others are clumpy. Have you ever cut a "lawn" of just weeds? Well the aroma of Goosegrass, crabgrass, Quackgrass and Nimbleweed is just not pleasant! Those of you who are just tired of the Quackgrass, orchard grass, goose grass and gosh knows what else…Contact us! Our company, BOG, Lawn Care, can and will get your lawn to be tall fescue (may take a bit of time! But it took a bit of time to develop that good old Quackgrass!) Oops, we forgot about crabgrass, wire grass and Mr. Ugly: creeping Bentgrass! Oh
well another time...

Maryland Invaders of the Spring

Very often anglers will arrive back at the dock, clean the fish that have been caught, hose off the boat, clean up the equipment and then make a potential very big error: dump the leftover bait into the dock area or even worse the angler will dump the bait bucket with live bait or worms into the bay as "chum". Why could this be a bad practice?

Simply put this is the most common way for species not native to our waters to get into the bay and then become a potential danger to the eco-system of the bay. If the live bait is a species not native there is a very good chance that that species will survive and multiply. Without a counter enemy in our eco-system the unwanted species will become an invader species. This is exactly how we got flathead minnows, the rusty crayfish, goldfish, red swamp crayfish, rainbow darters and many other non-native species into the bay. Some of the invaders have been totally harmless but others have brought related diseases to the water.

Once introduced into the streams, rivers or the bay, the non-native species can overpopulate an area at the expense of driving out the native species. What may seem like an act of kindness can turn out to be very harmful to the environment. Hard to believe, but common bait earthworms are causing eco-system changes to our forests and wooded areas. The species are from Europe and dramatically change the eco-system. Simply put, these worms change the soil chemistry, reduce the diversity of other worms and can help spread invasive plants.

We at BOG, love the bay and the rivers feeding into the Bay. We do not work in this field but we do wish to protect the water. So we recommend strongly that you think twice before you toss left over live bait, as an act of kindness or laziness, into the water.

Ode to the joys of spring... Ants!

Look around at the splendor of your world. Surrounded by the blooms, new leaves and fresh mowed grass; what else could you ask for? Of course there are other things that come with the territory called spring. New hope, abundance, fragrance, the great outdoors and last but not least: ants, ants and still more ants! Whoa here fella, what do you mean an abundance of ants? Don’t we just have about enough of our friends the mighty ant?

Well the answer is actually the other way; ants, pre-date us, outnumber us and out weight us! Additionally, if we are not clean in our living areas our dear friends, the ant, will outlast us! Here are a few ideas: ladies start your engines: clean all of your counters including the range! After you have finished do it again! Ants must have something to eat and the mighty ant will travel great lengths to get that needed food. Please don’t feed the lions, tigers, gorillas or ants!!! They outnumber us, outweigh us and have been around much longer than us!

Spring time is time for romance. When you see swarming ants a mating ritual older than time itself has begun. The males seek out the females within the swarm. After the mating has occurred the males begin the death ritual: they have done their duty and will be dead very soon. The fertilized female will find a tiny crevice or other hiding place. She will discard her wings, form a small cell and will lay a few eggs.
The eggs will hatch and ah Ha; white grubs appear (very small by the way). The queen will feed the grubs and as the grubs begin to grow the grub morphs into a worker ant. The worker ant forages for food (these are the ones in your home!)As the workers develop and more ants are hatched there will be new females and additional males: ah ha again: the swarm appears and off we go again. Good old queen will live 10-20 years on average producing eggs the entire time.

Please be careful in the treatment of ant invasions! Residential products may not be the best for you to use. Contact us for professional guidance!!

White Tail Deer and Ticks

Ticks in our area generally involve white tail deer. We are aware that the deer population is a burden to the environment and presents a variety of challenges. One of the more serious challenges is the proliferation of Lyme disease. Lyme disease has more than doubled in the last decade.

The tick in question is tiny and is transmitted by white tailed deer. Not sure about you but in my neighborhood the deer roam about as though they were curious children. Problem is however, that these children cause havoc to the landscaping and have the additional prize of carrying ticks. The ticks are very small and do fall off of the deer into the environment. Just walking through the area gives the tick the opportunity to latch onto a blood source: you or a pet, your children.

Just what do you do to help prevent the disease? One easy thing is to keep weeds and brush at an absolute minimum in height. Don’t provide a place for the tick to wait for its next meal.

Carefully inspect your clothing when you come inside. Check for ticks on your person. Obviously wear long sleeves and a hat. If bitten by a Lyme carrier the bite area will develop a circular rash that will continue to grow. Best advice: go to the Doctor and get a diagnosis. Treated early there will be little chance for developing Lyme’s. Do not be stubborn and presume the rash will go away. The resulting
disease is not pleasant. Long term debilitating issues can develop. Why take a chance? Contact us, we will get someone over to your home and deal with the tick situation.

West Nile Virus

The reality of the West Nile Virus (WNV) is that the disease was first found in the United States in 1992 and since that date horses, birds and humans have been infected sometimes with catastrophic results. While the first outbreak was in New York City, the disease has spread to 40 or more of the states. Approximately 5% of those infected have died. Over 15,000 cases in horses have been confirmed and over 4300 horses have been euthanized.

Mosquitoes are the carriers with four species been the most prevalent carriers. The common horse mosquito (c.pipens) is the mosquito that transmits the disease to horses. The mosquitoes bite infected birds and can carry the disease for upwards of ten days. Infected mosquitoes, as all mosquitoes do, bite multiple times; each and every time they bite they leave potentially infected salvia behind.

There are four phases of life for the mosquito. All mosquito eggs are deposited on water or in places likely to be flooded with water. The key to mosquito control is to eliminate as much standing water as you can. The first phase of the mosquito life is an egg, followed by larva, pupa and adult. The eggs generally hatch within 48 hours, enter the pupa stage, have the exoskeleton harden and then fly. Only the female mosquito can bite since they require a blood meal to be able to lay eggs. A typical female mosquito will live several weeks. The reproductive cycle is very fast and if standing water is left alone the quantity of mosquitoes present will be very high in quantity.

If you see dead birds, especially crows, report this information immediately to the health department.

If you have a mosquito problem or are very concerned contact us and we can provide the professional service you expect from BOG Pest Control.