Environmental Leadership
Saving the Hemlocks, one beetle at a time.
Prevention
- Be aware of your surroundings. The hemlock woolly adelgid is a skilled hitchhiker. Therefore avoid brushing up against infested branches and parking your car next to hemlocks.
Try and brush off any adelgids as soon as you come in contact with them instead of giving them a lift. - Don't place birdfeeders next to your hemlocks. One way HWA is spread is by bird traffic.
- Monitor your trees. There is no need to pre-treat trees chemically. It is better to wait until there are signs of infestation. Also don't fertilize infested trees as you just provide additional nutrients to the HWA.
- Manually prune of adelgids if you see them on your trees. Especially if you don't plan on treating them. Another option could be removing the hemlock if you choose not to treat, which will prevent generations of adelgids surviving on your tree and spreading to others.
- Don't transport infested saplings to be planted elsewhere.
- If you have lots of hemlocks on your property and can't treat them all you can thin out your hemlocks and save the best ones.