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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm torturing, maiming, and killing cicadas
...and I have to admit I've willingly and wantonly revealed a dark side of my humanity, all in defense of plants, trees, and shrubs. I've long-been a midnight slug killer, known to wipe out entire slug families in a single fall of my 13-size foot.
My cicada hatred has been evident and rising for over a month now, nearly to the day that I foolishly proclaimed the funny-looking emergents to be god's gentle little creatures; guileless and content to just sit and watch their new, confusing world go by.
That was before their colonization of every bush, tree, and plant they could crawl up and sit upon, no matter if it bent, broke, or failed to produce new shoots under their weight. Little black marks on the new black-eyed susan shoots; blackening marks on the roses, phlox, and every plant they clung to; stunted leaves on the slow-emerging, 20-foot Chinese snowball viburnum, tops of the oak-leaf hydrangeas stripped of new growth; tops of the Japanese maple bared; entire branches of the rose-of-sharons dying back, juvenile dogwoods weighted to the ground and yellowing.
But it's the lilac by the house that's the most popular love-shack at the lower levels of the garden. It's right by the lean-to greenhouse I dug into the side of the house, and they will hiss and wail at me as I walk by now. Too much! I have a broom nearby which clears the crag of a bush for about 15 minutes with a few good wacks to the branches.
I just cleared them off again, and there was an immediate uproar from the bank of oak-leaf hydrangeas behind me. I marched right up to the bushes and stood there glaring with my hands on hips, and, by god, they quieted down... until I went inside.
I don't know if this battle is truly necessary, or even feasible, given their numbers, but I'm now a dedicated cicada killer, a particularly vicious and vengeful one with not much mercy left in me. God help her bug-eyed, little creatures, because I can't be counted on anymore.
enough
(13,256 posts)...a 17-year thing.
Ms. Toad
(34,059 posts)but I have yet to see any. (I didn't see many 17 years ago either).
But - my brother (in Maryland) reports a similar infestation - he's been posting pictures of bushes carpeted so thickly with bugs that you can barely see any green.
USALiberal
(10,877 posts)dawg day
(7,947 posts)There are no cicadas in my neighborhood.
Three miles away, there are so many people are having to cover their car windshields with towels in the evening so they can get the window clear in the morning.
I guess 17 years ago, the cicadas decided not to lay their eggs around my house. Glad of that!
bigtree
(85,986 posts)...leaving tree litter where it falls, where I can.
Most of the soil all around my house is about 4-6 inches average organic matter, where there aren't plants. Good grub territory, I think.
dawg day
(7,947 posts)But i guess cicadas just love that rich soil!
Sneederbunk
(14,289 posts)MiniMe
(21,714 posts)I live in Damascus, and the soil around my house hasn't been touched other than mowing for years. But I have not seen a cicada yet, haven't heard them either. I grew up in Rockville, and lived in Gaithersburg, and we have had Cicadas 2 times since I lived there. I now live in Damascus which is a bit farther north. Thought we'd be overrun this year, but have heard and seen nothing.
bigtree
(85,986 posts)...I kinda thought it would be something mild like that season.
But I got cicada hell.
MiniMe
(21,714 posts)I'll probably have them long after they have left everywhere else.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Of course your inability to protect what you love from this plague has traumatized you, even turned you into a remorseless killer. How could it be otherwise? Just don't attack the monitor next time you hear they do no harm.
Next year.
FakeNoose
(32,620 posts)The projection is that we won't get them in western PA.
So, this map was published in the Pitts. Post-Gazette a couple weeks ago.
(link) https://www.post-gazette.com/life/outdoors/2021/05/13/cicada-brood-x-periodical-pennsylvania-lifecycle-predation/stories/202105120040
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Back and forth across 4 volleyball courts. They wouldnt leave her alone. We decided it was her perfume or deodorant attracting them.
They nasty creatures.