The Brood II cicada invasion have arrived in parts of Virginia and Maryland. The females can cause damage to some young and small trees and shrubs, such as lilacs, crepe myrtles, and ornamental cherries. Experts from Davey Tree say there are several things you can do to protect your trees:
1. Delay pruning your trees until the cicadas are gone. This can help remove some of the limbs they have damaged.
2. Protect smaller trees is by covering them with a breathable covering like cheesecloth, Reemay fabric, or tulle.
3. Put out additional bird feeders because birds naturally prey on cicadas.
Photo credit: By William H. Majoros (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Shouldn't we remove the feeders to encourage the birds to eat more cicadas instead?
ReplyDeleteHi - I think the idea is to attract birds to your garden with a food source then they will move on to your cicadas and other insects.
ReplyDelete