IT’S YOUR NATURE
  • Martin Byhower home
    • My landscape service fees
    • About Me
    • Contact me
    • Other Services
  • Plant Photo Gallery
  • Examples of my work
  • Plant information
    • Why Native Plants?
    • Deer resistant plants
    • Freeze resilient plant List
    • Shade Tolerant Plants
    • Creating a pollinator garden from Wizzie Brown >
      • Mountain Laurels and Genista moth caterpillars
  • Wildlife Friendly Pest Control
    • Beneficial Insects from Wizzie Brown
    • Gallery of Beneficial Bugs
    • Mosquito control newsflash!
  • Dealing with Deer
  • Birding Guide Service & Bird Gallery
    • Checklist birds of the region
    • Checklist Birds of Sun City
    • Birds of Central Texas Gallery
    • Recent referrals/recommendations
    • sparrow ID
  • Gardening tips
    • The case for leaving leaves
    • Planting a Butterfly Garden
    • Where have all the birds and butterflies gone?
    • Garden Tips for Wildlife
    • Is your lawn making your pet sick?
    • Garden alternatives to non-native plants
    • Gardening for bats
    • One Option in Bare shady areas?
    • Green Waste and Mulch
  • Bird Garden & Feeding Tips
    • Bird Friendly Native Plants
    • Attracting Birds to Your Garden
    • Bird Feeding Tips
  • Fun Photo Galleries
    • Backyard & Neighborhood Birds of Central Texas
    • New England Trip
    • Some of my favorites gallery
    • Flight and Fancy
    • Gallery from the Great Freeze
    • After the freeze Gallery
    • Hints of Spring Gallery
    • Birds of Spring in Central Texas
    • Late spring central Texas life Gallery
    • Summer 2021
    • A sampling of my subjects
  • My Blog
    • Leaf and groundcover presentation
  • Sun City Activity Center Plants
  • Composting presentation

We all love our Texas Mountain Laurels! Beautiful evergreen shrubs or trees, nearly invulnerable, with fragrant purple “grape Kool-Aid” pendulant cascading flowers in spring! But alas, their Achilles’ heel is afoot (pun intended). The voracious Genista moth caterpillars can strip them of their new growth in short order, vastly reducing the number of flowers you will get in Spring. Tonight, by flashlight, I removed 50 or so from one of my plants. Personally, I like to pluck them one at a time and squish them! If you are more squeamish, you can drop them in a jar of water with some detergent in it to drown them. If you’re even more wussy, or they’re too high in the tree for you to reach, blast them off with a high power nozzle and they will likely get eaten by predators before they make it back up into the tree. You can locate them by the chewed area near the tips of new growth, accompanied by silky spiderweb looking stuff. Yes I can’t add pictures here, so I’ll create a page for them on my website. For more garden tips, native plant gallery and more, feel free to check out my website, martinbyhower.com.
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  • Martin Byhower home
    • My landscape service fees
    • About Me
    • Contact me
    • Other Services
  • Plant Photo Gallery
  • Examples of my work
  • Plant information
    • Why Native Plants?
    • Deer resistant plants
    • Freeze resilient plant List
    • Shade Tolerant Plants
    • Creating a pollinator garden from Wizzie Brown >
      • Mountain Laurels and Genista moth caterpillars
  • Wildlife Friendly Pest Control
    • Beneficial Insects from Wizzie Brown
    • Gallery of Beneficial Bugs
    • Mosquito control newsflash!
  • Dealing with Deer
  • Birding Guide Service & Bird Gallery
    • Checklist birds of the region
    • Checklist Birds of Sun City
    • Birds of Central Texas Gallery
    • Recent referrals/recommendations
    • sparrow ID
  • Gardening tips
    • The case for leaving leaves
    • Planting a Butterfly Garden
    • Where have all the birds and butterflies gone?
    • Garden Tips for Wildlife
    • Is your lawn making your pet sick?
    • Garden alternatives to non-native plants
    • Gardening for bats
    • One Option in Bare shady areas?
    • Green Waste and Mulch
  • Bird Garden & Feeding Tips
    • Bird Friendly Native Plants
    • Attracting Birds to Your Garden
    • Bird Feeding Tips
  • Fun Photo Galleries
    • Backyard & Neighborhood Birds of Central Texas
    • New England Trip
    • Some of my favorites gallery
    • Flight and Fancy
    • Gallery from the Great Freeze
    • After the freeze Gallery
    • Hints of Spring Gallery
    • Birds of Spring in Central Texas
    • Late spring central Texas life Gallery
    • Summer 2021
    • A sampling of my subjects
  • My Blog
    • Leaf and groundcover presentation
  • Sun City Activity Center Plants
  • Composting presentation