Cicada Damage on Japanese Maple Tree - April 2025
Last Spring, we planted a new Emperor 1 Japanese Maple tree in the understory garden of the backyard after bringing it home from the Morton Arboretum plant sale. Of the various Japanese Maples we've planted, we've had the most luck with Emperor 1s. Last year was also, unfortunately, cicada season for us in Northern Illinois. Lots of cicadas. I attempted to protect many of our trees with tulle - including this newly planted Japanese Maple ( see here for the cicada protection ), but it seems that the top part of this new tree suffered from the little slits the cicadas carve into branches to lay their eggs. Below is a photo of the tree - where you can see the top half of the tree is dead. When you look closely at the leader, you see the telltale signs of cicada damage: these slits along the branch: I pruned off the top/dead branch of this tree and am hoping that we can see some recovery. Trees typically die from the top--...