There are few things more annoying about parking under a tree than finding that your car has a viscous, sticky coating one morning. It threatens your paint job and, if you left a window cracked, can do far worse than that. It’s almost impossible to get off without driving through a car wash several times.
You’d be surprised how many calls we get about this sort of nuisance. The good thing is that, as professional arborists, we can take care of it.
Are you wondering what the cause is? Have you ever been curious about why it hits so many different types of trees, like ash, birch, maple and oak?
When you experience dripping like that from a tree, you have aphids. A lot of them.
What are aphids? They are like mites and scales, in that they are a pest that will suck on the tree. They measure about 1/8 inch long, with antennae and long legs. They generally have no wings, and they can be any color from green, yellow and tan to pink, white, gray and black.
Once you get aphids, you’ll have a lot of them, because they reproduce at a very high rate. As their numbers grow, their host trees develop stress. The aphids will pierce the buds, stems and leaves of the tree, sucking the fluids out. The plants are left with stunted growth and a loss of coloration. The blooms get a puckered look and lose their shape.
As aphids eat, they can send viruses which will damage or kill trees. Because aphids eat more sap than they need, they excrete as honeydew from their recta. It is these excretions that end up falling on your car, so you get a sense of how disgusting this problem is.
If you think you have an aphid infestation, give one of our professionals a call today to get a complimentary consultation and treatment plan.