Here in Grand Island, New York, the ash trees are dying. The emerald ash borer has become infestation widespread. It is only a matter of time before the trees are all removed. Thirty to sixty percent of the trees on Grand Island are ash trees, so this will be a big loss of the community.
All of the communities in Western New York should work together to create a huge tree-planting project. We should plant a wide variety of tree species so that we can have as much diversity as possible. The days of planting a monoculture have to be over. It is impossible to know when the next invasive insect species will come along.
A community that has a great diversity of trees will get through an attack by an invasive species without experiencing a disaster similar to that experienced in many communities in the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States as a result of the emerald ash borer.
This autumn, plant a tree or two or three and show your tree love!
Today’s question: what is your favorite tree species?
Lovely trees
Why are the Ashes dying? What kind of insects. It's so sad.
That's a hard one, Alice, but I would vote for two trees – the sugar maple (maple syrup and fall color) and the linden (so many uses, plus such sweetly scented flowers, even though they aren't showy). The ash blight is here, too, as you know. And, some strange blight seems to have hit the Norway Maple in my front yard. It's already lost most of its leaves in the past few days. I have no idea what is going on. I agree about the lack of diversity in urban trees. And let's be careful what we plant. The "tree that grew in Brooklyn" (in that great novel), I understand, is under attack by something, too. Poetic justice, perhaps, because that tree (the ailanthus), over the years, had become a terrible scourge.