Verdict remains out on ash tree

The jury is still out.
But it doesn’t look good at the moment.
A good-sized ash tree in our backyard has been endangered by the emerald ash borer, like tens of thousands of other ash trees in the Midwest.
The tree has been there ever since we moved in, but back then it was just a smallish tree next to the old steel swing set we brought with us from our prior house.
These days, the swing set is long gone, the girls who played on the swings have grown up, and the ash tree is about 2 feet in diameter.
For decades, it’s provided shade that helped keep the house cool in the summertime and reduced our air conditioning costs.
But the march of the ash borer south across Indiana has kept us worried.
We’ve applied the expensive treatment that supposed to kill the borer, but there’s been a feeling it’s only a matter of time.
On walks through Hudson Family Park last winter, we saw significant woodpecker damage to ash trees along the edge of the woods that is home to the nature trail. Woodpeckers find the ash borer delicious, but by the time they start drilling into the bark it’s probably too late.
Just the same, we’ve kept watch over our tree for signs of any infestation and have kept our fingers crossed.
An old friend of ours who was a forestry student at Purdue never cared much for ash trees. He considered them a “trash tree” because of the thousands of seedlings they drop and their tendency to lose lower branches as the crown of the tree grows higher.
I won’t argue with him. We’ve swept up the seedlings from the patio and grumbled, and it’s true that lower branches tend to die out as the tree grows. But we love the tree just the same.
So every day for the past few weeks, we’ve been watching it closely, waiting for it to leaf out.
That’s something it does relatively late in spring, and it’s fooled us before into thinking it had died only to have it leaf out fully later.
Still, with the ash borer reaching the peak of its invasion and having weathered a rough winter and chilly spring, the tree has been making us nervous.
Turns out, we’re not the only ones.
At a neighborhood party over the weekend, we were able to get a different perspective on the ash and learned our backdoor neighbor has been watching it as closely as we have.
From his backyard, I had to admit things looked pretty bleak.
If not dead, the tree looks to be in distress, perhaps even dying.
But if you look more closely, you’ll discover the bright green of new leaves high toward the top.
Every day, I look for more, hopeful for a reprieve.
It may just be one more summer, but I’ll take it.[[In-content Ad]]