Worried about your ash tree after that freeze? Worry not, your leaves will return! Ash trees make up roughly 15% of Denver’s urban canopy- learn how to care for them by reading below.
How to Recognize an Ash Tree
While many trees bloomed a little early this year due to the warmer winter, ash trees don’t start out with traditional flower blossoms. Although, you may start to see small green blooms start to sprout through before the leaves do.
However, since the leaves came through so early this year, they definitely felt the freeze of the last snow. So, if you’re seeing the wilted leaves on your ash tree, you’re not the only one.
Luckily, with early leaves like this, if there’s a wilt, a second round is on its way! As long as you keep your trees properly watered, those new buds will start popping out in the next couple of weeks.
How to Care for an Ash Tree
Despite being a hardy tree for Denver’s arid climate and clay soils, ash trees still need routine maintenance. Tree trimming can go a long way in maintaining the tree’s shape, but sometimes the elements can call for extra treatments.
Remember those blooms we talked about earlier? While normally a light green color, they can also change into a darker shade and become quite bulbous. If you’re noticing this on your ash tree, this is actually a sign of mite gall. Mites lay their eggs on the buds of the tree, which is why they form those distorted galls.
Ash trees can benefit from spring and fall fertilizations, as well as general insect sprays to mitigate any pest issues. But the main concern here for ash trees is the emerald ash borer.
What is the Emerald Ash Borer?
Emerald ash borers are not native to Colorado; they originate from eastern Russia, northern China, Japan, and Korea. Although, here in the States, they’re mostly seen in the US in Minnesota or Michigan due to the high ash tree population there.
However, it’s hypothesized that these borers got here due to the transport of infested ash tree wood.
What makes the emerald ash borer so dangerous is the quick impact of the infestation. The larvae feeds under the bark or the trees, which ends up cutting off the water and nutrient supply to the tree. Once infested, the tree can see a rapid decline and death within 2-4 years.
How to Recognize the Emerald Ash Borer
This insect can be difficult to detect due to burrowing under the bark, but there are some signs to look out for.
- branches without leaves, especially the top of the canopy
- vertical splits in the bark, which expose s-shaped tunnels
- wild leafy branches sprouting from the trunk
- D-shaped exit holes in the trunk
How Can I Protect My Ash Tree from Emerald Ash Borer?
ArborScape provides bark injections every other year to protect against the emerald ash borer. We start these injections around late May, after the leaves have budded out, as that helps encourage the spread of the chemical throughout the tree.
There are other options, like an ash borer spray. We tend to couple that with a soil injection earlier in the year. These treatments should be done annually to provide continuous protection for your ash tree.
These are all timely treatments. If done too early, the bark injection won’t work properly because the leaves aren’t pulling the chemical through the tree.
That being said, there are other environmental factors to consider. For instance, we started the soil injections a little earlier this year due to how warm it was. However, we might start the bark injections a little bit later due to the freeze. We need to wait until the second round of leaves start to bud.
For more information on the emerald ash borer or ash tree care, check out our website! If you’re concerned about your ash tree and would like an arborist to come out and assess it, give us a call at (303) 806-8733 for a free quote!
