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City advises residents to cut down ash trees as insects invade

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July 30, 2010
Hudson City Arborist Tom Munn shows how to identify an ash tree, which is the only tree where both the branches and leaves are opposite each other. The leaves resemble a feather.
Photo By RPC Photo / Laura Freeman Hudson City Arborist Tom Munn shows how to identify an ash tree, which is the only tree where both the branches and leaves are opposite each other. The leaves resemble a feather.

by Laura Freeman

Reporter

Hudson -- The emerald ash borer is here, and the ash trees will come down one way or another, according to City Arborist Tom Munn.

The first of the city's series of educational meetings about the ash tree-killing insect began July 27 at the Barlow Community Center.

The emerald ash borer, a shiny green insect about as long as a penny, began killing ash trees in Ohio in 2003. Munn found the insect in a tree on South Main Street in Hudson in June.

"When people find the emerald ash borer in their community, it's more established than they thought," Munn said.

If one tree is infected, all the trees in the city are likely infected, Munn said.

The emerald ash borer can kill an ash tree in three to five years.

"It's invasive and comes in quickly," Munn said.

The city expects to lose all of its 689 ash trees within the next 10 years, and homeowners should consider their ash trees infested, Munn said.

About 10 percent of the trees in Hudson's woodlots are ash, and about 7 percent on the tree lawns are ash, Munn said.

Munn told residents they need to make decisions now about their ash trees. He urged residents to cut trees this winter before there are any signs of dying.

"The emerald ash borer attacks all ash trees, and even healthy looking trees are infected," Munn said. "By the time owners notice the thin or dead tops, it is too late."

The city does not plan to cut down its trees until they die. When the city initially proposed cutting down all the city ash trees, residents protested, Munn said.

The city will cut down trees as they die, ground the stumps and replace them with different trees as the budget allows, Munn said. The city can afford to wait to remove trees until they are dead.

"While the city pays a set price to cut trees down, residents will need to negotiate a price," Munn said. "A good price is usually available during the fall and winter months."

Dead trees are more hazardous to remove and therefore more costly, Munn said. Trees in an area will begin to die at the same time and increase the costs.

"Now is the time to decide to cut a tree down or treat it," Munn said. "Soon 7,000 households will be competing for the tree services."

Many homeowners are attached to the trees in their lawn and may try to save one or two, but treatment only delays the inevitable, he said.

"The choices you make are preventative not curative," Munn said. "No treatment is 100 percent effective."

Only treat healthy trees, which have the best chance of surviving, Munn said.

"If you treat it with an insecticide, do it while the tree is healthy-looking," Munn warns. "Once it starts to die, it's too late."

The insect's larva does the damage by boring into the bark and destroying the vascular system of the tree. Water and nutrients can't reach the top, and the tree begins to die from the top down.

"Once a tree begins to lose leaves, branches fall and the color is not as bright, the tree is dead," Munn said. "I think in 50 years we won't see the ash."

Sherry Beam, a member of the Hudson Garden Club, said history has shown the best approach is to remove the trees. She said residents attempted to treat American elm trees for Dutch elm disease in 1965 but lost them.

"We know what other cities have done about the emerald ash borer," Beam said. "Do we want to take ash trees down? No, but the best thing is to cut."

The most important lesson to learn from this situation is to plant a wide variety of trees in the future, she said.

Munn's presentation will be shown on Hudson Cable TV channel 25 the week of Aug. 9. A video version is available at http://hctv.
pegcentral.com/index.php.

E-mail: lfreeman@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3150




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