Arbor Doctors

Tree care company specializing in tree health, insect and disease diagnosis and treatments.

05/26/2026

Pear Psyllids infesting a backyard orchard. There's a lot of neat little critters in the typical American backyard. Sometimes you just have to zoom in a bit to see them.

05/11/2026

Bladder gall mites on a Linden tree.

04/16/2026

Pine needle scale infests an Austrian pine. Their life cycle in a nutshell is: they hatch, crawl around the needles for a few days, find a nice comfy spot to eat, after which their legs atrophy, they grow a hard, white shell for protection, lay some eggs, and die. Heavy infestations cause needles to yellow and die, followed by twigs and eventually whole branches dying. Probably not a very fulfilling life, but at least they have a valuable set of skills.

04/03/2026

Out looking at some Austrian Pines in early April. These blurry little dots are aphids that have probably woken up in the last week or two. One of the things I really hate about posting this stuff is that it's nearly impossible to get a decent image of these really tiny creatures. Oh well.

03/30/2026

Some people call them red back caterpillars others call them red hump caterpillar. I like red back because it sounds cooler. They enjoy hanging out in groups and eating leaves. They're usually not a big deal but once or twice I've come across a tree that is horribly infested and had to evict them. Other than that I just think they're pretty cool looking and I tend to leave them alone.

03/27/2026

Absolutely nothing to do with trees but I'm gonna post this anyway because it's cool. Herd of Elk, in various levels of blurriness, hanging out as the sun sets.

03/25/2026

Cedar apple rust and similar diseases are are pretty cool. Infected apple leaves produce spores that infect Cedar trees in the summer. The infection on the Cedar usually goes unnoticed. The following spring brown galls start to appear and enlarge. One year later those galls turn into these bizarre gelatinous structures. These orange monstrosities produce spores that infect the apple and basically complete the cycle. Two host plants and two years later and this is the result.

03/15/2026

Sometimes you see stuff on a property that isn't good or bad, it's just there and it looks cool.

Top picture is a River Birch with Erineum mites. These guys are creating some striking, purple colored patches on the leaf surface.

The middle is a gall midge on a Red Maple making some impressive, brightly colored spots.

The bottom is a vibrant yellow Lichen growing on a Hazelnut or a Witch Hazel, I really don't remember.

I think all three of these add some color and aesthetics to a landscape free of charge.

03/11/2026

This little backyard orchard was getting beat up pretty bad a couple years ago. A few different issues going on but most impressive was this insane aphid infestation. Aphids may not be very intelligent but they're really good at what they do. I think there's something to be said for that.

03/04/2026

Some bugs are bad, some are good. When you spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at trees you get to see some pretty neat stuff. Here's two videos spliced together of syrphid flies doing cool things. The first is an adult seeking out an aphid colony on a flowering cherry. The second is the larval stage feeding on some aphids.

So syrphid flies are good. They eat aphids and other plant infesting insects. So try not to kill them.

Address

Missoula, MT

Telephone

+14063171629

Website

http://arbordoctorsmt.com/

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