It's not too late to band your trees to fight cankerworms in Charlotte

No, it's not too late to band your trees in Charlotte to fight damage from cankerworms in the spring.

The banding, and smearing of the bands with Tanglefoot or some other sticky goo, prevents the female wingless moths from climbing up the trunks to lay eggs in the tops of the trees, primarily willow oaks. The moths make their climb in early winter after leaves have dropped. That leaf drop only happened at my house in the last couple of weeks.

In the spring, eggs hatch and then defoliate and weaken the trees. First to fall victim are the willow oaks, and then anything from dogwoods to maples, if the year is particularly bad, as 2008 was for the cankerworms in Charlotte.

Need help? Several local companies are available. I used Steve Barilovits, a chemistry student at the University of North Carolina and a Plaza-Midwood resident when he's not at school. Reach him through e-mail. That's him and his mom, Jane Laurent, in the photo.

If you're another local company offering to band trees in Charlotte, feel free to leave a note in the comments.

Background on the evil cankerworms: From 2009, including a lovely closeup of the evil female wingless moths;
From 2006, showing the damage that can happen to dogwoods if the worms don't have enough willow oaks to eat.

Great pumpkin wall rises again in the Elizabeth neighborhood of Charlotte

The Great Pumpkin Wall has risen again in Elizabeth, at the corner of Clement Avenue and Eighth Street. As of today, it looks as if it needs some help from expert carvers.

You can also carve at home and bring your pumpkin to the wall.

Official lighting ceremony is at dusk on Friday, Oct. 29. Trick-or-treating at the wall is Saturday, Oct. 30.

Note: The Merry Oaks neighborhood is trick-or-treating on Sunday. Other nearby neighborhoods like Plaza Midwood are planning events for Saturday. The Plaza Midwood Fall Crawl, to raise money to band trees against cankerworms, is on Saturday.

In the photo of the young carvers:
Sophie Cleghorn (left), daughter of John Cleghorn of Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church, and friend Kate Hader.

For past pumpkin wall posts, go here.

Design Help: 5 Cents (an update)

Here’s an updated photo of Booth 3651 created by Civic By Design for the Southern Spring Home and Garden Show. at the nearby Park Expo and Conference Center (formerly the Charlotte Merchandise Mart).

About 20 architects, landscape architects, interior designers, construction designers and a graphic designer plan to staff the booth during the show, which starts Wednesday (today!). The show lasts through March 9 (Tuesday).

Said Tom Low of Civic By Design in an email update: "We plan to add a short explanation with a plaque on the counter - 'Meet a Design Profession, Ask a Question, donate a Nickel,' with some other details, and center the booth in the space."

Anyone can ask a designer a question for a nickel. Proceeds will go to Friendship Trays, a local nonprofit.
Go here for more on the effort to help underemployed designers.

Photo from Civic By Design.

How to get vines off trees

It’s tree banding season in Charlotte, part of an annual effort to combat cankerworms, which exploded in 2008, leaving weakened and dying trees in their path.

The city spent more than $1 million that year to fight the infestation.

Trees in the spring of 2009 showed little damage from the pests; still, people are banding trees now to prevent a repeat of spring 2008.

But in many Charlotte neighborhoods, there’s a first step: clearing invasive vines from the trees.


Yes, the vines, especially wisteria, can be pretty and offer refuge for birds. But particular invasive species crowd out native species, can swallow trees whole and can also provide a path for nasty creatures like the pervasive cankerworms to climb the trees. The vines can even sneak under tree bands, creating highways for cankerworms.

Here’s how to get invasive vines off trees. It works for vines such as English ivy, wisteria, poison ivy and honeysuckle.


Tools
Boots or solid shoes
Proper clothing: long sleeves and pants legs
Clippers and loppers
Gloves

Step 1
Dress properly. If you will be walking in patches of ivy, boots or other protective shoes are important because of unknown creatures underfoot. You don’t just have to worry about snakes, but also smaller foes like fire ants, spiders and poison ivy. Gloves are essential even if you’re nowhere near poison ivy, because ants and spiders can hang out in the vines that climb trees.


Step 2
Cut vines at the base of the tree down low, and clear the vines as far away from the tree as you can to slow return growth. Sharp clippers work for small English ivy vines; larger loppers and sometimes even small saws are needed for thicker, stubborn older vines and wisteria.


Step 3
Cut the same vines up higher on the tree, about three feet off the ground, to prevent the vines from growing back together at the cut you made down low. If you’re strapped for time, cutting even a small inch or two out of a vine might stop or slow growth.

Special notes
You don’t have to pull all the vines out of the trees. In the case of established vines, they might wind through tree branches high up the tree, and it could take months of wind, rain and snow for the vines to fall off the tree. But as long as the base of the vines has been cut, they should die and eventually fall off.

Warning
Beware of vines with fuzzy hairs. Poison ivy often mingles with English ivy as it climbs trees, but the best time to combat is in the winter months. Dress accordingly when combating established poison ivy vines on trees and shower as soon as you can. One neighbor recommended dishwashing liquid to cut through the “grease” of poison ivy after a battle.

References, for inspiration and further research:
Nature Conservancy: Invasives
The No Ivy League, from Portland, Oregon
Mecklenburg County Invasive Species Task Force

The two biggest enemies in my Merry Oaks neighborhood are wisteria, which can sneak through cracks and eventually destroy fences as well as trees, and the ubiquitous English ivy (botttom):

Tax revaluation ruh-roh

It's almost September 2008. A Mecklenburg County tax revaluation, with accompanying bills, is due in January 2009.

Do you know where your neighborhood stands?

Check The Charlotte Observer's comparison of recent home sale prices in 2006 and 2007 to tax values with an interactive map here.

The map above shows Merry Oaks. Red dots indicate home sales that were more than 50% higher than existing property tax values. Orange dots indicate sales that were 30% to 50% higher. Green dots indicate sales 10% to 30% higher.

Of course, prices in your neighborhood could have changed dramatically since 2007. If so, it might be worth your while to gather data on those price changes.

Power tools, politics and pumpkins

The plaster walls in most of the brick homes in Merry Oaks present challenges for those doing home improvement projects. Some of the homes in other center-city neighborhoods have the same walls.
Carpenters familiar with the construction techniques explain: The builders put up two by fours, then put in thin horizontal wood strips on top of those. Then they slathered cement -- yes, cement -- on to the thin wood strips. The cement oozed into the small cracks between the wood strips, forming an incredibly tight, strong bond. On top of the rough cement went plaster.
Seems those returning World War II vets wanted bunkers.
So if you plan to put holes in the walls for shelves, art, curtains or crown molding, prepare to use force. The small nail guns with air cartridges and batteries won't necessarily cut it -- but nail guns powered by heavy compressors seem to work well. You can rent the tools at Home Depot, and choose your nails carefully. Steel nails will work, experts say.
Of politics: Merry Oaks is in a small corner of the 8th Congressional District, a seat held by U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes of Cabarrus County. The district lines are oddly drawn, with our corner of East Charlotte and points east lumped in with rural areas in Cabarrus. Mel Watt's 12th District is often less than a mile away for many residents.
Democrats are targeting Hayes in the 2008 race, because he won by only 328 votes over teacher Larry Kissell in the last election. Read Lisa Zagaroli in The Charlotte Observer (link might expire in two weeks) for updates as 2008 nears, and check out new political links here. For official government websites that affect the neighborhood, the Merry Oaks Neighborhood Link website is a great place to start.
Of pumpkins: In a small sunny clearing, surrounded by woods, pumpkins are blooming and growing. It's unclear who planted: I like to think a student at Merry Oaks Elementary stuck the seeds in behind the school. Here's hoping that same student gets to return in the fall to see what summer sun and rain produce. See if you can find the pumpkins on a walk through the new well-used, paved trails near Merry Oaks Elementary. Caveat: it could be squash or zucchini, I'm not completely sure.
Time will tell.