Lycorma delicatula
An Upper Arlington homeowner guide. Identification, lifecycle, and the highest-leverage actions you can take. By David All — featured in The Guardian.
What to do now ↓As featured in
“It might be a little messy, but it will save your tree.”
David All · Spotted Lanternfly · May 2026
Field reports from Upper Arlington — what I'm seeing on the dog walk. New videos posted as the season unfolds.
Spotted Lanternfly in Upper Arlington
Penn State Extension is clear: "SLF is a plant stressor that, in combination with other stressors (e.g., other insects, diseases, weather), can cause significant damage." The lanternfly rarely kills a tree on its own. It tips already-stressed trees over the edge.
Heavy feeding reduces photosynthesis and depletes the carbohydrate reserves a tree needs for winter. Penn State researcher Kelli Hoover: "If trees are stressed, we cannot rule out that even larger trees may suffer reduced health and growth."
"When the bugs infest a tree during the summer and that is followed by an especially cold winter, that can cause branches to break or roots to decay."
— David All, in The Guardian
A summer of lanternfly feeding plus a hard freeze means more broken limbs on roofs the Monday morning after the storm — and your neighbor's silver maple, already structurally compromised, loses the fight season after season.
Nov – Apr
Gray, mud-like patches on bark, fences, garden furniture, grills, walls. 30–50 lanternflies per mass.
May – June
Black with white spots, ¼-inch long. Look on new spring foliage — especially Tree-of-Heaven, sweetgum, and grapevine.
July
Red with white spots and black markings. Same hosts. Larger and more visible.
Aug – Nov
~1 inch long. Gray forewings with black spots, brilliant red hindwings that flash when jumping.
Misidentification kills natives. Native moths and planthoppers can look similar. If you're not sure, photograph before you smash. Better still, identify with CanopyKeep first.
Nov – Apr
Scrape egg masses
Highest-leverage action. One winter session beats all-summer effort.
May
Nymphs hatch
First-stage black-with-white-spots nymphs on new foliage.
Jun – Aug
Smash on sight
Every adult eliminated prevents 30–50 nymphs next May.
Sep – Nov
Adults lay eggs
Peak smashing window. Prepare for winter scraping.
Each mass is 30–50 lanternflies that don't hatch in May. Scrape them off bark, fences, outdoor furniture, grills, and walls into a container of soapy water or rubbing alcohol. One winter session beats all-summer effort.
Egg masses look like gray, mud-like smears. They're often hidden on the underside of branches and in protected spots. Look closely — and check your neighbor's fence too.
If you're cutting it, you're spreading it.
Ailanthus altissima is the most aggressive invasive tree in Ohio — and the Spotted Lanternfly's preferred breeding host. In Upper Arlington it pushes 50–80 feet at maturity, and a single tree's root system extends well across property lines. Cut, mow, or pull one — and the clonal network responds, sending up dozens of suckers in your yard and your neighbor's.
Conventional wisdom — cut first, treat the stump — is the older protocol. The lead labs out east, where the lanternfly arrived first and the science has had a decade to catch up, point the other way: treat the standing tree, then remove. Cut first and you trigger the very clonal response you're trying to shut down. I read the journals.
Done right, eradication is a two-to-three year commitment. Done wrong, it's permanent. I don't take one-shot Tree-of-Heaven jobs — they don't work.
I survey the surrounding properties for connected clones and coordinate with neighbors directly. One tree is almost never one tree — the campaign has to cover the network, not just the trunk in your yard.
Window is narrow and the chemistry has to be right. Translocation timing matters more than most operators doing this work realize — get it wrong and you've added stress without delivering the dose. Then weeks of patience before the trunk comes down.
For mature trees over 20 feet — most of them in UA — I coordinate the climb-and-rig crew and supervise the removal myself. Stump grind included. The work gets spec'd right and the bids get evaluated honestly.
Spot-treat survivors. Watch the seedbank. Multi-year persistence is what separates eradication from a temporary win — and what most operators won't stick around for.
Stop pulling. Stop cutting. Stop mowing.
Mechanical removal triggers the clonal response. Every cut without a treatment plan makes the problem bigger and the network wider.
Other invasive removals
Same long campaign. Different species.
Booking July work now. Multi-property coordination included.
CanopyKeep is the free tree-intelligence tool we built. Take three photos of any concerning insect or tree symptom; the tool returns species, lifecycle stage, severity, and weekly actions. ~95% accuracy on Spotted Lanternfly across all stages.
Each sighting also builds the Upper Arlington map we're rolling out — a real-time picture of where lanternfly is showing up so the community can coordinate.
Open CanopyKeep — Free →No account needed. Works on any phone.
Ohio quarantined Spotted Lanternfly in February 2026. ODA's homeowner guidance covers movement-of-goods rules, low-toxicity oils for larger infestations, and the four core actions: inspect outdoor furniture and firewood before moving them; remove host plants like Tree-of-Heaven and wild grapevine; destroy egg masses; swat, stomp, or vacuum nymphs and adults.
Read the ODA guidance →Most homeowners can handle lanternfly themselves with smashing and egg-mass scraping. The time to call an arborist is when lanternfly is one stressor among several — branch dieback, root-zone issues, decline after a hard winter or a drought, structural defects compounding.
I do property assessments and condition reports across Upper Arlington. We walk the trees, document what's there, and make a plan.
Text David — Property Assessment →My field-notes write-up on the Guardian conversation, the Penn State research, and the gap that's bigger than the bug:
Spotted Lanternflies on the Dog Walk — and a Call from The Guardian →