By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

Whether it’s gardening or barbecuing, yards are the perfect place to spend time in the summer. Unfortunately, a host of insects and other pests agree, and some could even invite themselves into your home.

While they are harmless to humans, scale insects can do sneaky damage to a yard’s plant life. These insects have taken over trees and shrubs in the Troy and Rochester areas, according to Tom Morgan, marketing manager of Owen Tree Service Inc. in Attica, Mich.

“It’s been a problem for years — but not to this magnitude,” he said.

According to Morgan, the bugs damage plants by sucking the juices of the plant and exuding a honeydew on them. This liquid attracts a sooty mold, he said.

Soil injections or tree trunk injections can eliminate the adults and their spawn, and sprays can kill the baby insects. However, scale insects can be hard to find.

“They’ll just appear as a bump, and they can be easily confused as part of the twig,” he said. “A lot of them are just brown.”

Morgan said his company reins in other outdoor invaders like Japanese beetles and moles. Because moles can damage lawns by burrowing, Owen Tree Service offers an animal control service that traps them.

“The mole traps will kill the moles right where they’re at,” he said.

Mount Clemens-based Spider Control Inc. destroys the nests of pests like bees, wasps and ants. But its biggest target is spelled out in the company’s name.

“Right now, spiders are getting pretty bad,” said company Manager Andrew Behe. “All their eggs are starting to hatch.”

Behe said homeowners should watch out for spiders because they like the season’s moist and warm weather. Residents who live along Lake St. Clair tend to have an especially hard time because the arachnids feed off of a buffet of lake-dwelling insects, he said.

“Where there’s food, there’s often going to be people,” he said. “Same with insects.”

One way to keep spiders from flocking indoors is to get the home’s exterior treated from the eaves down to the ground. This will stop the spiders from hatching eggs, Behe said.

Edward Blumling, president of Ridder Pest Control in Troy, also exterminates spiders. He said virtually every home has a problem with them, and they often enter basements or windows and work their way up into the house.

Besides spraying a home’s exterior, homeowners can stop the spread by replacing older windows, cutting tree branches near homes and by knocking out spider webs with a broom, he said.

Blumling also advised homeowners to watch out for carpenter ants. He said these ants burrow into moist, damaged wood and make nests. Although they don’t eat wood like termites do, they eat things like dead insects, plant honeydew and food scraps, Blumling said.

Carpenter ants can be killed with pesticide or poisonous bait. However, Blumling said they can be hard to kill since they tend to come out at night while he works during the day.

“It’s a challenge for a pest control company because they have to be there at the right time, at the right place,” he said.

To learn more about Owen Tree Service Inc., call (800) 724–6680. To contact Spider Control, call (586) 783-1577. Ridder Pest Control can be reached at (248) 280-9800.

You can reach Staff Writer Eric Czarnik at eczarnik@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1058.