[DoomsDave]

Ash trees, aka Fraxinus, are big, fast growing trees that spread with winged seeds on the wind.

If you get a baby take care to remove it sooner instead of later.

Here’s a thirty year old specimen in Southern California.

 

[DoomsDave]

I have babies of various sizes all through my palmy paradise.

That’s my mitt clutching the trunk of a specimen that sorta zoomed to about ten feet tall in about two years.

 

[DoomsDave]

Here’s a bitty baby about a foot tall. Even at size it’s way too tough to rip out by the roots.

 

[DoomsDave]

So I applied Ortho Brush B Gon undiluted concentrate on the trunks and waited.

About a month later they’re on the way out.

 

[Old Thomas]

All our ash trees are dead or almost dead from the emerald ash borer. Thanks, China.

 

[DoomsDave]

All our ash trees are dead or almost dead from the emerald ash borer. Thanks, China.

Ni-hau, Emerald Ash Borer!

Send 'em our way. We have plenty of substitutes for ash trees.

Have to post a pic of what happens when you don't do some ash editing.

 

[BigJim]

Might make a nice hiking stick out of it. That is unreal that the Ash tree is that large in just 30 years. I love working with Ash, it is a good wood to machine.

 

[lenaitch]

I'm guessing that your Ash on SoCal is a different subspecies. You might get the Borer yet - I think it started on the east coast. Mostly green, black and white ash up here. We've lost a lot, much of it preemptively to try and contain it (mostly unsuccessful).


I agree it is nice wood to work and finishes nice. I have some downstairs waiting for me to get together with a buddy's planer.

 

[DoomsDave]

Ash wood might be good, I hear it's used in hammer handles. And, it makes great firewood, even when it's green, if it's hot enough.

But the trees are a terror. They get big, fast. They spread like crazy if you let them. And, worst of all, they have the Roots of Doom. Close to the surface, fast growing and they tear up sidewalks, and streets, in asphalt or concrete. And they invade the pots of the little palm trees you put under them.

Imagine the Huns as trees. That's ash trees here in lowland Southern California.

And, to top it all off, they break in winter storms here. Ash trees here have a very brief deciduous season, from about Thanksgiving to Christmas, which means they're in full leaf during most of our sometimes stormy rainy season.

The wood is hard, tough, and very very brittle.

When I lived in LA back in the late 1990s, there was a giant ash tree in the back yard, and a big limb broke off in the middle of a storm; I was standing about 20 feet away. It was somewhere between two-and-a-half and three feet in diameter. The tree was massive, too, bigger than the one in the picture above.

 

[DoomsDave]

Here’s a yard with ash seedlings allowed to grow in higgeldy piggeldy fashion

 

[Old Thomas]

The now dead ash trees in NY are great majestic trees and their wood is so much like oak that it is hard to tell them apart. They are tall and strong. Huge swaths of woods are now standing dead.

 

[BigJim]

The now dead ash trees in NY are great majestic trees and their wood is so much like oak that it is hard to tell them apart. They are tall and strong. Huge swaths of woods are now standing dead.

If someone had a saw mill and the time, they could really rack up some good lumber. Store it and wait, a few years, that stuff will be scarce as hen's teeth, like Chestnut is now.

 

[DoomsDave]

Ash is good wood. Just wish the trees didn't suck so much.

Imagine what happens when the trees in #10 above all get to be the size of the one in #1.

Or even half or one-third that size. No room for much else.

 

[DoomsDave]

The now dead ash trees in NY are great majestic trees and their wood is so much like oak that it is hard to tell them apart. They are tall and strong. Huge swaths of woods are now standing dead.

We're starting to have problems with pine bark beetles here, especially in the mountains from the previous drought.

 

[lenaitch]

If someone had a saw mill and the time, they could really rack up some good lumber. Store it and wait, a few years, that stuff will be scarce as hen's teeth, like Chestnut is now.

I agree. I don't know if there is some government rule that infected trees can't be milled, but we have had a lot of trees removed preemptively, mostly on public land but some private, and some of them were quite large. I was in a mill a few months ago and he told me all he can get is small, < 12". It might be just his particular source but it would be sad if larger timber is being landfilled or chipped.

 

[Old Thomas]

My woodshed is full of ash and I have more to cut and split. The emerald ash borer goes between the bark and the wood, so the wood is perfect. The only difference is that after it sits for a while the bark comes off and sawdust falls out.

 

[SeniorSitizen]

Ash trees, aka Fraxinus, are big, fast growing trees that spread with winged seeds on the wind.

If you get a baby take care to remove it sooner instead of later.

Here’s a thirty year old specimen in Southern California.

Our son with the saw mill would nearly die for that tree. Although it's too big for his Mizer, knowing him he would find a way to whittle it down to his size and OMGAWD that big fellow has some of those board feet.

This trunk on his band mill ( Arizona Ash ( Fraxinus ) was given to him and i'm hoping i live long enough to go see all the nice lumber he cut from it. I'll ask him if he has any pics of the wood from it.

All the interior cabinetry of our house, stair banisters and rails is ash. It was popular when the house was built in 1983 but i've no clue which Ash it is.


EDIT: EDIT:

 

[BigJim]

That is a really nice mill, that has got to be a lot of fun.