With about 2 weeks left until we start to see canker worms around the city, it's time to band your trees.

Sarah Regent, Parks Gardener:
"The easiest way to prevent canker worms is to band your trees. Now is a great time to do it if you didn't get around to it in the fall. Canker worms should be emerging in the next few weeks as we are getting this warm up and thaw out. You want to put that band 5 feet off the ground, so animals and kids don't get into it. And make sure that if you did band your trees, that the grease is still there, in a good layer, not full of leaves."


She said even though elms and maples are a favourite of canker worms, anything that produces a fruit is a high risk for canker worm infestation.

"The ones on the boulevard, we do leave it up to the home owners to do banding. Home owners are allowed to band trees in front of their property, and then the City bands Elgin Park and Crescent Park, because they historically have had the highest number of worms."

Any sticky grease will do. Tangle Foot is a specific grease designed for the purpose, but you can also use axle grease or Vaseline - both readily accessible options.

"Canker worms are largely an annoyance, and they won't kill a tree unless it's combined with some other stressor. If it's drought, or hail damage, or something like that. They can make a tree a bit more susceptible to Dutch Elm Disease. It can be hard to track whether the canker worms were the last straw that allowed for the tree to be infected. But, nonetheless we should be controlling canker worms." added Regent. "They haven't been too bad for the last couple of years, but they tend to be cyclical. So they should be on the rise the next couple of years. We'll have a few years of higher numbers, and then we'll be back to lower numbers."

For any information you can either go on the City's website or contact the Parks and Rec Department at (306) 694-4447.