Q: Our dwarf Alberta spruce has dead areas. Can you fix that?

• Bill from North Jackson

A: Yes, my husband asked me this question. He knows I love to solve a problem in the garden and landscape. Sure enough, this was right up my alley.

After moving into our new home, I began a hunt as these shrubs had holes and dead areas that were not the sign of a healthy plant.

Mites were my first educated guess. So I followed the rule of thumb for identifying mites: take a sheet of white paper and hold it under the suspect branch and shake it. The mites will drop to the paper. Then smear your hand across the paper. OSU tells us that green or brown lines are from mites that are feeding on our plants. Red smears are mites that are feeding on other mites.

Sure enough — mites it is.

I also noticed bees and some sorts of flies all around them, so I did not want to use any chemical controls. So I simply used my garden hose and forcefully sprayed each tree three times per week to knock the mites down.

Mites are members of the spider and tick family. They thrive in cooler seasons of spring and fall. In the summer, they survive as eggs. You may also see webbing in the needles and sheds as the mites shed as they grow. There will be yellowing as the mites feed on the chlorophyll called stipples. So from a distance it looks brown. This was what I first noticed.

There are five stages to maturity from egg to adult. These mites are weather-dependent and thrive on cool, not hot, weather. Usually the tree will show browning at one side of the base, and then it moves up the tree as patches.

By this time there will be holes and bare spots. These will not grow back. It is best to prune out the dead parts back to living tissue and hope the spot fills in within a year or two.

Many predatory natural enemies feast on these creatures, so spraying is not advantageous. There are oils and soaps that can be used. At any rate, read all labels and instructions if you choose these.

But my hose did the trick. I am seeing green, new growth and no beneficial insects were harmed in this experiment.

As well keeping your plants healthy, watering, feeding when appropriate, and mulching will help to keep your plants healthy, and many times fight off these predatory organisms.

Learn more about mites at http://go.osu.edu/mites.

Today’s answer is by Stephanie Hughes, Ohio State University Mahoning County Extension Master Gardener volunteer. To get help like this in the Extension clinic, call 330-533-5538 to submit questions. Regular clinic hours are 10 a.m. to noon Thursdays. Or visit go.osu.edu/

virtualclinic.