{"id":215,"date":"2007-04-28T09:50:58","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T16:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/2007\/04\/28\/protecting-your-wimpy-trees-from-cicadas\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T18:15:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T01:15:42","slug":"protecting-your-wimpy-trees-from-cicadas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cicadamania.com\/cicadas\/protecting-your-wimpy-trees-from-cicadas\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting your (weak) trees from cicada egg laying. Use netting, not copperhead snakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update (5\/4\/2024) Here is a link to a video on Twitter\/X<\/a> from the Chicago Botanical Gardens featuring the Garden\u2019s plant healthcare supervisor, Tom Tiddens. He shows us how to net a tree to protect it from cicada egg laying. <\/p>\n

As you may have heard, cicadas can damage trees, particularly young or ornamental trees<\/strong>, as they oviposit their eggs in branches. The damage to individual branches is often permanent, and in some cases the entire plant is lost. Native species of trees, like oak and maples<\/strong>, fare much better against cicadas because they have co-evolved for hundreds of centuries. Young trees and weaker non-native ornamentals, imported from outside the United States, fare a lot worse.<\/p>\n

Female cicadas use their ovipositor<\/strong> to carve egg nests<\/strong> (egg grooves, punctures, baby cicada cribs) into the bark of tree branches:
\n\"Ovipositor\"<\/p>\n

Here is an illustration of the egg nests (baby cicada cribs):
\n\"Egg<\/p>\n

Mature trees will receive some damage, but they recover<\/strong>. When branches are damaged they die and their leaves turn brown, which is called flagging<\/strong>:
\n\"Brood<\/p>\n

\"Periodical<\/p>\n

Check out these articles on Flagging:<\/p>\n