Spruce Tree Aphids  

Do you have spruce trees in your landscape?  If you do, now is the time to look for the spruce aphid, a destructive critter that with repeated infestations will leave spruce trees defoliated along the branches, with no needles in the interior.

Early February until approximately mid-March is the only time of the year to check for spruce aphids.  To detect them, take a piece of white paper, hold it under a branch, and tap the branch firmly.  If present, you will see small, greenish aphids crawling on the paper.

If you find spruce aphids, treatment with chemicals now is necessary to get rid of them.  They appear in early February and increase through March, and will cause spruce needle drop if left untreated.  Insecticidal soap and horticultural oil are the least toxic products to use for treatment.  Horticultural oil, although effective, can alter the color of some blue spruce.  Unfortunately, there are no effective non-chemical treatments.

Young spruce trees will benefit the most from treatment.  Once an older tree has lost its needles, it will never look attractive.  Since spruce don't thrive well in western Washington, it might be better to replace a damaged tree with a conifer better suited to our area, such as pine, fir, chamaecyparis, etc.

- Sharon Schlittenhard