CHARLOTTE -- At the end of this month, many trees around Charlotte will start to look a little different. They’ll have their trunks wrapped in thick sticky bands.
Without these bands, cankerworm moths can climb up to the top of a tree and lay thousands of eggs. Come spring, those eggs will hatch, and green caterpillars will feed on the leaves.
Erin Oliverio, Tree Canopy program manager with the City of Charlotte, said, “Repeated defoliation can weaken trees and make them more susceptible to other stresses, such as age, drought and disease.”
But this year, if you're looking for a popular product that many people use to band trees, you are out of luck.
“The most common product to use to band trees is TangleFoot is unfortunately not being manufactured this year, and it's very hard to find in the Charlotte area,” said Oliverio.
Instead, many hardware stores will sell a similar product called Bug Barrier.
“It's essentially the same type of concept, except that the glue band is on the inside of the band instead of on the outside, so it makes it a lot less messy apply,” Oliverio said.
VP of Sales at Little Hardware Kearns Little said his store just got new shipments of Bug Barrier.
But he doesn’t expect it to last long.
Experts say right after Thanksgiving is a good time to band trees on your property.
“We got a good supply here right now, but I don't expect this to last longer than a couple days,” Little said.