We are blessed or cursed with six trees on our Madison property. The City of Madison is responsible for one maple next to the curb. We are responsible the other five trees, two in the front, two on the west side, and one in the back. Our front trees are ash trees. The west side trees are an ash and a silver maple. The back tree is a silver maple. All six trees, including the city maple, are tall and mature.
The ash trees were here when we bought the house in 1986 and the silver maples were planted shortly after we took possession of the house at the urging of the local utility, Madison Gas and Electric (MG&E). MG&E told us the silver maples were fine trees because they grew fast and offered shade. They would decrease our energy costs significantly according to MG&E. What MG&E did not mention is the silver maple likes to generate buds in the spring, seeds in the summer, and leaves in the fall. It is not a tree which ensures your gutters are free of debris despite the salesmen on TV telling you their gutters always remain clear of any type of obstruction. Their gutters would clog with a silver maple. When our leaf-free gutters were installed in 2014 we soon found out the clog free gutters were no match for the silver maples. So the MG&E tree adviser in 1986, in my opinion, had no experience with trees and should not have been advising us to plant silver maples.
On August 15th I was cutting the neighbor’s lawn. I was nearing the end of my lawn mowing when a guy appeared in the next door neighbor’s yard looking at the trees and bushes. He wore an MG&E vest and held a laptop computer. MG&E left us a notice on our front door notifying us they intended on trimming some of the trees on our property because they had grown over some of their power lines. I wondered if this guy was the author of that hand written notification. I made one more swing around the lawn and stopped the lawnmower.
“Are you the guy who left something on our front door?”, I asked.
He replied, “Yes, it was me. Are you the owner of this property?”
“No, that would be Gael.” Gael has asthma and so the large lawn would take her four hours to cut. I told her I would do it for her. It takes me 45 minutes.
“Oh, I know Gael. In fact I am familiar with one her friends. So where do you live?”
“Two houses east.”
He looked at his laptop, typed something, and looked up. “Are you Ralph? “
“Yes.”
“You and Jean, your wife, live there. You have ash trees and maples.”
“Yes, that is right.”
“Let me finish here and I will come over and we can talk about your trees.”
I finished Gael’s lawn and he finished talking to the people next door at about the same time. I, the lawn mower, and the MG&E guy then walked to our house. As we walked the short distance to the house he started the conversation.
“I’m John. I am a certified arborist. I got my degree from UW-Stevens Point. I am going through the neighborhood determining if anything needs to be done to trees to protect our power lines. “
John seemed friendly enough. I responded. “I did not know MG&E had arborists. I guess I am a little biased against MG&E and trees. MG&E told us to plant silver maples to cut down on energy usage. We found out they are a very dirty tree.”
“I would have never told you to plant a silver maple. Do you know about the emerald ash borer?”
If you live in Madison, or even Wisconsin, you know about the emerald ash borer. It even has its own acronym (EAB). The EAB parents lay eggs on the tree and then the larvae burrow in the tree and within a few years the tree is dead.
John's mood turned from pleasant to dismayed. "The house next to you [to the west] has a large ash tree in the back. I called the owner. When, not if, the EAB gets to that tree they will do nothing about it."
I was impressed. The house next to us is owned by a holding company located in California. We have no idea who to call in California if there is a problem with the house or t he residents of the house. John called and talked directly to the landlord. Although he did not get a response he hoped for, he still made contact with the owner.
I then talked about and hoped for regarding EAB and our ash trees. I found out I was wrong, really wrong. "Yes, I know about EAB. I think we are ok. There are not a lot of ash trees in our neighborhood and I was told when we bought the house the ash trees are mountain ashes. I hope they are immune from EAB."
We walked to the house and I invited John to come in. Jean was sitting in a chair.in our carpeted living room. I sat down in a chair next to her. John asked to stand in the vinyl floored entryway because he had been walking around the neighborhood all morning and was not sure what he stepped in. He did not want to get anything objectionable on our carpet.
John said in a friendly way trying to avoid the shock value. "The ash trees you have here are not mountain ash. They are green ash. If you truly had mountain ash, then,yes, they may be immune. But you don't. I told you I have been around your neighborhood looking at ash trees and EAB is less than a mile away. In fact two streets down there is a lady with a ash tree in the back yard and it has EAB."
John let the significance of what he said sink in a little and continued. "I think you have at the most two to three years before these three trees are dead unless you treat them. Were you planning on treating them?"
I tried to respond but the thoughts I had were not about the trees. I thought here is another guy from MG&E giving us tree advice. I was not happy with the advice we received about the silver maples 33 years ago. However, John had been honest about everything we talked about thus far and I decided it was not necessary to doubt what he was saying. He was trying to be prepare us for our upcoming tree disaster.
"To be perfectly honest we hadn't thought about that. We think treatment might be expensive."
"The cost of treatment is based on the circumference of the tree. For the ones in the front yard I estimate it might be $600 per tree. The treatment lasts two years and then has to be redone. The treatment isn't foolproof and may not work. You may decide the treatment is not worth the money and cut down the trees. Or you may want to cut two of them down and keep the one in the center of the yard. In any event, you will lose trees. It just a matter of how many."
"I guess we will need to get an estimate and see what it will cost. Cutting down the trees is not going to be cheap."
"I agree it will not be cheap but it will be a one time cost. Treating the trees would be a continuing cost. There are a lot of good tree guys in Madison. They are all very busy this time of year. You have some time to determine what to do with the trees. I would suggest you call them in the winter, their off-season. You can probably get a better idea as to what it will cost. I would think taking the ashes in the front would not be too bad cost wise but getting the ash in the back may be a little costlier because it is close to the house and you need special equipment to get back there and take it down."
Jean and I looked at each other and shrugged. There was nothing more to question or say. John, the MG&E arborist, gave the three trees the death sentence. We now had to decide when to determine their fate.
John added. "There have been studies done on EAB. You can determine when the trees have EAB pretty easily because woodpeckers will show up searching for the larvae. A study was done on EAB trees and once the larvae start eating the branches of the tree retain a tenth of their strength. Soon a gust of wind or a bird landing on a branch will break the branch. The tree becomes hazardous if left alone for a period of years after the onset of EAB. So once they have EAB you cannot let the trees stand very long. They will become hazardous quickly with falling branches. Your neighbor will discover that over a period of years even though he says he will do nothing with his ash tree."
I thought the ash trees were history. As longs as he was here what did he recommend for a replacement tree. "If we want to replace any of the trees what would recommend?"
"Most of the trees in Madison have different potential problems. The only tree without any problem is the male ginkgo tree. The female versions are very dirty. I think most of the nurseries in Madison only stock male ginkgoes."
One genus of trees did not seem to be a lot. If we replaced the ashes we could plant another tree with potential future problems.
"I will tell our guys to trim the two ashes in front for you to protect the electric lines. They should be here sometime in the next two weeks. I will make a note that you are trying to determine whether to cut down or treat the three ash trees."
He made the notation even though he knew the three ash trees would not be treated and would come down in the future. He apparently accomplished everything he wanted to talk to us about: EAB, EAB treatment, tree removal, and tree trimming. John said his farewell. He told us if we had any questions to let him know. He also said we could call him when we decided on the company to dispose of the ash trees.
We need to decide when to schedule the death sentence for the ash trees. We will wait until this winter and talk to a tree company. Perhaps we can also trim back the silver maples while disposing of the ash trees. At this point, I think a replacement tree is not a good option. Grass does not grow very high and has never clogged our gutters. Grass should probably be our best ash tree replacement option.
