The Village of Oak Park | 123 Madison St.  Oak Park, IL 60302 | village@oak-park.us

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Cicadas are coming this spring

April 18, 2024 - Periodic cicadas will return to Oak Park this spring after the notoriously noisy insects have been living underground for the past 17 years.

The emergence of cicadas is a highly coordinated, natural phenomena in our region during which large numbers of cicadas appear around the same time in May and early June.

While cicadas do little damage, the noise produced by large numbers of cicadas can be quite noticeable.

Adult cicadas don’t feed on trees, but they do repeatedly drill into small stems to lay their eggs. Occasionally, this can cause smaller branches to die.

Village Forestry officials say this rarely impacts a tree’s health unless it is small in size with few branches and a trunk less than 2 inches in diameter.

If you do have a small tree that you are concerned about, consider covering it with fine netting prior to the cicadas emerging. Planting small trees can also be delayed until after the cicada emergence is over.

Almost all of the trees that are part of the Village’s spring tree planting program will be large enough in size to withstand the emergence of the cicadas.

For more information about the care of the nearly 18,000 trees on public property, visit www.oak-park.us/trees, call 708.358.5700 or email publicworks@oak-park.us.