Our Ashes Are Dying

We live in a neighborhood where the effects of the emerald ash borer are clearly hitting home this year. This Asian insect was first discovered in North America near Detroit in the summer of 2002, likely a hitchhiker in wooden pallets or packing materials. By now it has spread to a considerable portion of the United States.

Here is a photo of the borer, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. Small but deadly.

It took the borer a few years to arrive in central Ohio, and death takes three to five years of larvae munching on the inner bark of ash trees, but this is the time, this is the year that the die-off in our neighborhood has taken hold. Here a photo with an ash tree and another type of tree, taken on June 3rd.

When the entire ash tree is visible, the result can be stark.

While some are completely dead, some are hanging on but sickly and doomed.

This one has one small leader still alive. The old squirrel nest is exposed.

Some houses have an entire row of dead or dying trees looming above them.

The various arborists and tree-trimming outfits have already been busy this year.

Sometimes the ash will develop bleached bark or will shed bark.

We had three of our ash trees, the ones close to the house, treated in the fall of 2010 with injections of emamectin benzoate, with a repeat treatment every other year. So far they are still thriving. Our fingers are crossed.