reverence4wood
New Member
Hi. We have an ash (~57" circumference trunk both at ground level and 5') in the yard of our home that we bought last summer. It's pretty much dead- had only very few leaves on only some limited branches last year, I can only see one area with a couple of small branches with any buds this spring, and the woodpeckers have had a hay day pecking small holes everywhere, presumably to get at the EAB.
I don't know if it looked healthy two years ago / when it started to show signs of its upcoming demise. The bark on the trunk is solidly intact to at least 8 feet, then you can see light strips where the outer-most layer of the thick bark has started to be shed, and in some small spots on upper branches all the bark is starting to fall off.
It basically needs to be felled, but we're wondering if it can wait 8-9 months until next winter. Is it safe to leave it standing until then, or is it likely to fall before?
We can't get the help we need to take it down for maybe another month, and are running out of time to seed the area that it will have to be felled onto (we had to put a septic system in, and are left with a hillside of sand that we want to curb erosion on sooner than later.)
If it did happen to fall naturally with its lean in the meantime, it would most likely fall into the open area that we will eventually fell in into. The trunk splits into two about 7 feet up and it's too far away to hit the house or any infrastructure in the direction of the lean of the main part of the tree.
This seems pretty unlikely (to my completely experienced eyes!), but the only way it could hit anything would be if a limb on the secondary/smaller part of the tree broke off about 25 feet up: the ends of those branches could possibly reach far enough to hit the infrastructure lines on the side of the tree away from the house. I can see that the bark is more compromised up there.
How likely is it that the tree would loose a limb from that high up at this stage of its death? Would it be safe to leave it standing another 8-9 months until next winter?
Thanks very much!!! I can post pictures later once the rain stops, if anyone is interested.
I don't know if it looked healthy two years ago / when it started to show signs of its upcoming demise. The bark on the trunk is solidly intact to at least 8 feet, then you can see light strips where the outer-most layer of the thick bark has started to be shed, and in some small spots on upper branches all the bark is starting to fall off.
It basically needs to be felled, but we're wondering if it can wait 8-9 months until next winter. Is it safe to leave it standing until then, or is it likely to fall before?
We can't get the help we need to take it down for maybe another month, and are running out of time to seed the area that it will have to be felled onto (we had to put a septic system in, and are left with a hillside of sand that we want to curb erosion on sooner than later.)
If it did happen to fall naturally with its lean in the meantime, it would most likely fall into the open area that we will eventually fell in into. The trunk splits into two about 7 feet up and it's too far away to hit the house or any infrastructure in the direction of the lean of the main part of the tree.
This seems pretty unlikely (to my completely experienced eyes!), but the only way it could hit anything would be if a limb on the secondary/smaller part of the tree broke off about 25 feet up: the ends of those branches could possibly reach far enough to hit the infrastructure lines on the side of the tree away from the house. I can see that the bark is more compromised up there.
How likely is it that the tree would loose a limb from that high up at this stage of its death? Would it be safe to leave it standing another 8-9 months until next winter?
Thanks very much!!! I can post pictures later once the rain stops, if anyone is interested.