I have had bag worms kill a couple of small trees and today discovered that they had eaten all the leaves off one side of Robinhood. I'd never had them attack a rose before. Does anyone else have trouble with them and what do you do about it - besides pulling all the bags off and stomping them, which I did.

I have never heard of bagworms, do mean tent catapillers? Wehad problems when I was a kid... We had to burn the infected part of the tree. Never sawthem on anything other than juniper or piñon trees.

No these are different; I'll try to post a picture.

I would bet horticultural oil would work. But probably slightly soapy water would work just as well. A teaspoon or two of Dawn in a bucket of water would probably do it. Just a guess.

Neem oil didn't do anything for them and I doubt the soap would either, The problem is that they spend a lot of time holed up in their "bags". Although I usually avoid chemicals, I sprayed with a systemic insecticide which seems to have reduced their activity. We'll see...

Good Point. I guess it depends on whether you can spray the critters themselves or just the outside of their home. I hadn't anticipated that their carefully built homes would keep out neem oil. I guess systemic insecticide should work better when you can't spray them directly.