Longlocks;

Notches or cuts of Rhodie leaves- not Cicadas;

Like Morz8 stated - veevils.

And to be fair to the cicadas, most trees have been blooming like crazy this year due to the pruning they received last year. I had so many fallen branches in my yard over the winter--but it was wood that had obviously been dead for awhile. The cicadas pruned the trees for free!

Yes, to be fair to the cicadas, I do feel that they are beneficial and really something pretty "wondrous" because they are so very strange, but I had so many and the noise they made was so intense that after a couple of weeks of them they became a distint nuisance. And they did seem to favor the rhodies in my yard for some strange reason (they were supposed to 'prefer' the oak and ash trees, but thousands (and I do NOT exaggerate here) only made it onto my rhodies.

I'm still not convinced that I've got weevils...with this much damage I'd have to see the occasional bug or find the larvae in the ground and I have never seen either.

The "cuts" and notches are NOT made by an insect...the brown spot gets dry (like paper) and then falls out...leaving the notch on the leaf. If you don't observe this as it happens you would think that an insect chomped the leaf, but if you observe the process from when the spots first appear and then watch the leaf over time you actually see it dry up, get hard and then drop away (and it leaves an ever so faint brown "edge" around the notch or cut too.

Anyway, didn't mean to diss the cicadas; I actually liked them (up to a point) and after all it doesn't happen but once every 7 (or was it 10?) years so its no biggie but I had read that when they come out in such numbers as Brood X did and they lay their eggs in young immature trees that it does sometimes stress and even kill them and I just wondered if that was perhaps what happened to my Rhodies (which are more like trees than shrubs).

I had lots of fun observing the cicadas from their emergence to their rather messy end and took lots of photos of the entire process. Part of their "strategy" in coming out in such massive numbers is that predators quickly become sated and can no longer eat them and I observed this first hand. {{gwi:390185}}. The toad was so sated that he completely ignored this "scrumptious" little morsel!

Longlocks

The cicadas did heavy temporary damage to all my native azaleas last year, making notches up and down the branches (leaving the older, thicker wood alone). I guess they will branch out more but it cost some flowers for this spring.

I have had a lot of damage to my rhodies and a couple of young trees that were too big to cover with netting. I think the rhodies will need to be babied a bit if we have a stressful summer and winter. I have noticed that the more I've watered them the more they seem to have recovered. I water about an inch twice a week.

From the cicada damage to my shrubs & trees, I will have quite a bit of trimming to do once this is all over.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by the number of cicadas that were in my town. Although they are interesting, they are a nuisance once the decay of the spent shells and carcasses starts. It's a rather smelly affair.

Jonny,

"once this is all over"? Brood X was over in 2005 and it is now 2 years (seasons) later...so I don't exactly understand what you mean? Do you mean you had an inundation of regular yearly cicadas that caused damage?

I too was dumbfounded by the number of Brood X cicadas. The decay of the spent shells and carcasses was DISGUSTING and you are right it smelled awful! Next time brood X decides to emerge I'm going south for a few months just so I don't have to deal with the whole thing! We have very few yearly cicadas here (stange isn't it? One would think if you lived somewhere where there were lots of Brood X cicadas that you'd also have lots of the regular yearly ones - but we have almost none of the variety that come out every year).