Will they kill a tree or just damage the new buds? I pulled out the brown needles and several had worms in them, maybe 4 or 5 that I saw and then I sprayed some soap water on the affected bud areas. You know, a few months back something laid some small white eggs on a branch that looked like butterfly eggs. I'm thinking now that it was a bad idea to leave them! I'm pretty sure that was what got into the buds.

"Western Indiana isn't exactly thuja central, so Cedar Leaf Blight shouldn't be a significant risk factor." Quite right, but.......some years ago, on a visit to Columbus, Ohio, we took a day trip to a place in S. Ohio called, I believe, The Seven Caves. Not too awfully far from Indiana. I was surprised and delighted to see there a mixture of Thuja occidentalis, Canada hemlock, and tulip trees, the latter of great size. Just thought I'd mention. BTW, a very scenic place to hike around, aside from the cheesy cave tours with their silly names for mineral formations, strings of cheap and unsafe looking electric lights, et al. Check it out if you're ever in that area. +oM

UUnder a pine tree sounds like a horrible spot for Impatiens, very dry. Other than yellow stems, what is wrong with your plants?

On pear trees, they're called pear slugs. On cherries, they're cherry slugs. An alternate name is sawfly. Technical name is Caliroa cerasi. They belong to the Order Hymenoptera. The black glossy things are the damaging larvae, the black stuff isn't skin but is fecal materilal. Likely, at that shedding stage, they were getting ready to drop to the soil where they'll spend the winter. Around here, they're insignificant to the tree's health. Don't know what the situation is where you live. The more green tissue that's lost, the more severe the effect. Even so, a one-year infestation would be unlikely to kill an otherwise healthy deciduous tree. Most likely, direct hits with insecticidal soap would limit the problem. The challenge, though, may be how to adequately spray the tree if it is large.