Caring for Trees

I have a special love for trees. I love their size, their shapes and their shade. I’m in awe of how long they live, and how they give shelter to so many birds and other animals. Trees even pump out the oxygen we breathe. Trees are just good.

Sadly, we’ll have firewood for life from dead ash trees

Southern Ohio has beautiful hardwood forests, but not all the trees in them are doing well. Sadly, the many species of ash trees here are rapidly dying out, victims of the emerald ash borer, a pest from another continent with no natural predators here. The forest in our neighborhood is just one of hundreds of forested areas all over greater Cincinnati that have the naked upper branches of dead ash trees poking out of them.

In some areas, ash trees make up about 30 percent of the forest; in others it’s closer to 10 percent. Virtually all of them are goners, and it’s a startling loss. Meanwhile, another serious foreign pest has arrived in our part of Ohio: the Asian long-horned beetle. It’s considered so destructive that wherever it’s discovered, the prescribed treatment is to cut down every tree within 100 yards. You can imagine the resulting loss of cover, not to mention the cost. Thankfully, only limited areas so far have been infested.

As trees are killed by these pests, other trees will fill in the gaps that are created, eventually. But you have to wonder about the birds and other critters that will be affected in the meantime by the loss of trees that they’ve co-adapted to for millennia.

There are many dead ash trees on our property, but we decided to have a local arbor company treat several of our still-healthy ones. A guy came and pumped a chemical into them that kills the emerald ash borers as they feed. Problem is, the treatment has to be repeated every two years, and it’s expensive.

Frankly, I don’t know what the long-term solution is, or even if there is one. I just know that I love trees, and that I want them to live long, healthy lives.