Just remove ash trees, or clear cut young dense wooded area

[uniballer]

I have a young dense wooded area that starts about 35 feet from my house. It's a mix of maple, ash, black locust and yellow birch. None of the trees is bigger than about 10 inch diameter at breast height, some are only 2 inches. Many appear to be 60 feet or more tall, with small crowns way up in the canopy, except for the ones that are on the edge of the woods. Until recently, I have not done anything in this area since about 1998.

I need to remove the ash trees because of the emerald ash borer. I have already had to remove a few of the small maples to get the first few ash trees down safely. My concern is that if I only remove the ash trees then the remaining trees will be more susceptible to falling due to storm winds this winter and next spring, and this area is too close to my house for this to be a reasonable risk.

Should I prioritize clearing this whole area, or am I likely to be OK if I only take out the ash trees?

 

[Raintree]

I'm not a forester, the Ash trees have to be removed for safety to the house and yard. What % of the woods is Ash? For me I would also consider culling out any black locust close to the house.
Some info...

https://mylandplan.org/content/how-thin-your-woods

Long term, the remaining tree stand will become hardened and less susceptible to wind damage with proper thinning.
Is there a history of blow downs along tree lines in your area? Trees adapt to winds by increasing root strength, however poor ground conditions can be compromising.

 

[ATH]

Yes...big variable is % of ash.

How close to your house is this and how big of an area? You said tallest trees ate 60'. I wouldn't worry about dead ash 100' or more away. They will come down. I've been telling people for a little over a decade now that just think of this as a "natural thinning". Unless your woods is over 30% ash, you'll hardly notice the impact in 5-10 years as the canopy closes back in.

If it is real heavy with ash, I'd want to know more about your soil. Is it shallow? Sandy? Frequently saturated (unlikely with the species mix)? If so, blow down is a bigger concern... which direction is it from your house and where are the prevailing winds from?

 

[uniballer]

I live on a gently sloping hill of glacial till about 900 feet above sea level. The soil is mainly clay, but not the typical local red clay, with a layer of shale 2 to 3 feet down. There are the remains of barbed wire fences on the south edge, indicating use as a pasture for livestock many years ago, and also explaining the richer soil in the top layer. The eventual bedrock is reputed to be limestone, but we never dug deep enough to reach it even when digging for the full basement in the house. There are pieces of granite on the surface in our woods to the west that must have been brought down from Canada by glacial activity.

My house is about 115' from the south lot line. The trees start about 35' from the house. The land on the other side of this lot line was logged maybe 7 to 10 years ago. There have been several large trees blown down over the years and in this area of my property they always seem to point north, even though the prevailing winds are generally from the southwest to west.

I don't think more than 25% of the trees in this area are ash, but they seem to start and/or grow faster than the maples, so they are bigger. In the more mature woods elsewhere on the property the maples tend to dominate except where there are stands of black locust, yellow birch, and aspen. And there are a few weeping willows where it is really wet.

I agree that the black locust near the house need to go.

If I clear cut this area I expect that I would remove all of the trees within 70 to 75' of the house.

 

[uniballer]

I cut down one of the smaller ash trees the other day after work. Of course, it got caught in the other trees and I had to drag the butt end and cut pieces off until I could get it down. I was curious so I measured the pieces and added them up to discover that it was only 4.5" DBH, but it was 51 feet tall.

 

[ironman_gq]

I'd thin it out and clear cut anything within 60' of the house to eliminate the hazard to the house. The rest should harden up with time, birch would probably be the most susceptible after the ash, at least around here they seem to die young and come down on their own pretty quickly after starting to show dead limbs at the tops.

 

[Huskybill]

That’s my problem now the PO since 1957 let the two acres get over grown. After 14 9’ rack body truck loads to the dump I’m stuck with very large ash, maple and hickory trees. Sooner or later they all need to come down. Selective harvesting of course. I have probably six big trees larger than my 42” bar. Down the rear water shed of my land I been planting young oaks, birch and maple trees figuring someday the bigger trees there will come down. I’m going to need a climber/feller over the winter.

 

[Marine5068]

I have a young dense wooded area that starts about 35 feet from my house. It's a mix of maple, ash, black locust and yellow birch. None of the trees is bigger than about 10 inch diameter at breast height, some are only 2 inches. Many appear to be 60 feet or more tall, with small crowns way up in the canopy, except for the ones that are on the edge of the woods. Until recently, I have not done anything in this area since about 1998.

I need to remove the ash trees because of the emerald ash borer. I have already had to remove a few of the small maples to get the first few ash trees down safely. My concern is that if I only remove the ash trees then the remaining trees will be more susceptible to falling due to storm winds this winter and next spring, and this area is too close to my house for this to be a reasonable risk.

Should I prioritize clearing this whole area, or am I likely to be OK if I only take out the ash trees?

I'd start cutting out the Ash then on to the Birch near the house and work back to a safe distance if a tree fell.
Be careful

 

[uniballer]

My friend came over today to pick up a trailer load of free stove-length rounds (he has a splitter and a wood furnace), and I put him to work running a pull line to help me take down the biggest, and closest, black locust tree. It was leaning pretty far towards the house, but it came down just where I wanted it. So it's coming along.

 

[uniballer]

I took out some more trees yesterday. The worst was a smooth-barked hickory that had apparently been bent over by a falling birch years ago. It wasn't broken, but had some trunk damage and rot, and the top of the hickory was hung up in a black locust. I bore cut the base of the hickory to get it off the stump without splitting and pulled out the base, but it got caught lower down in a fork in the locust. I had to get the pole saw and cut off the top of the hickory above where it was stuck in the locust before I could pull it down. Had to think twice and stop myself from getting under it a couple times.

I'm sure I could cut all the trees in the area of concern in one day if I didn't care about safe footing and the mess (or had an army of workers to drag the stuff out for me). C'est la vie.

 

[uniballer]

I have noticed that when I cut the black locust trees, using the same techniques as the ash and maple trees (~90° open face notch, 80% of diameter notch, 10% of diameter hinge), the maple and ash trees have to be cut off the stump but the locust trees break right off. I assume there is a difference in the wood fibers, but would love to know more about this.

Also, the more I look at the black locust trees the more damaged bark I am seeing. I assume this is from rubbing or strikes from other trees. Most of it is pretty high up, but one of the older trees has loose bark with about 4 feet of exposed heartwood underneath.

 

[uniballer]

I got home just before sunset and cut down another black locust tree that still has leaves. I thought maybe it could hit the house if the wind gets serious.

The ground is really saturated. We've gotten almost 2 inches of rain today, with more coming, and the NOAA says to expect 65 MPH wind gusts over night.