Bag Worms!

This is quite a nasty topic today.  Worms.  Worse yet, Bag Worms forming the largest colony in one of my Leland Cypress trees.  

Bag worms defoliate a branch and use bits of the foliage as they go to create a bag.  This bag becomes their home.  It reminds me of a snail's shell because you rarely see the worm without the bag.   Enough bag worms will strip a tree clean, making for a very ugly cypress tree.  Note that they seem to only eat Cypress trees.  

I have found a few now and then on my trees and normally just pluck them off and throw them away.  Well, last week I rounded the corner and saw my tree from my neighbors lot and this is what I found:

The entire side of the tree was stripped bare and countless bags were hanging on the branches.  My first thought was, "Ewwww!  Gross!"

Here's a closer look:

I called Cari, my hero, out to evaluate the situation with me.  We decided the best action was to pluck as many as we could off of the tree and cut the stripped branches.   We grabbed some gloves, scrunched our faces with the best "eww gross" faces, and started dropping the worms into a bucket.

What do you do when you have a bucket full of bag worms?  Burn them!

By the way, I just checked and the worms are still making a move on my tree.  We're having a worm plucking party on Sunday.  No RSVP needed.