Green Ash

• Opposite, compound leaves with 5–9 leaflets
• Diamond-patterned furrowed bark on mature trunks
• Paddle-shaped seeds hang in clusters on female trees
• Branches emerge directly opposite one another

Native range

Native across the eastern and central United States including Kansas, common in bottomlands and planted heavily as a street and yard tree through the second half of the twentieth century.

Soil

Very adaptable — tolerates wet ground, drought, compaction, and alkaline clay with equal indifference.

Sunlight

Full sun

Drought & heat

High drought tolerance, high heat tolerance.

Don't plant new ash in Kansas. If you have a healthy, well-placed ash you want to keep, talk to a professional about preventive trunk treatments before EAB reaches your neighborhood — after dieback appears, it's usually too late.

Moderately shallow and fibrous. Not usually destructive to paving or laterals, though surface rooting shows up on compacted sites.

Fair while healthy; over-mature trees develop weak unions. The bigger issue is what happens after emerald ash borer — a killed ash becomes brittle remarkably fast and is dangerous to climb, so dead ash need removal sooner than other dead trees.

Overall storm resistance: Fair. Assessing damage after a storm

• Emerald ash borer

  Serious

  The decision every Kansas ash owner now faces. Look for thinning from the top down, D-shaped exit holes about an eighth of an inch across, S-shaped galleries under the bark, and pale patches where woodpeckers have worked. Preventive trunk treatment works; treatment after major dieback generally does not.

• Ash/lilac borer

  Manageable

  A clearwing moth larva that tunnels the lower trunk, leaving ragged holes and swollen scars. Far less lethal than EAB, and often confused with it — the exit holes are round, not D-shaped.

• Ash anthracnose

  Cosmetic

  Brown blotches and early leaf drop after a wet spring. Alarming in May, harmless by July.

Seeing something not listed here? Work from the symptom instead

Best windowDormant season — November through February

Train young trees to a central leader and space the scaffolds. If you are treating for emerald ash borer, keep the canopy intact — heavy pruning during treatment works against the tree by reducing the foliage that drives uptake.

Use caution, and not because of the tree's habits. Any ash near a structure now carries a standing decision: commit to preventive treatment on a schedule, or plan removal before it dies and becomes hazardous.

• Emerald ash borer damage has taken more than about a third of the canopy — past that point treatment rarely recovers the tree
• The tree is already dead: ash decays and becomes unsafe to climb faster than most species, so removal should not wait
• Bark is splitting and blonding where woodpeckers have stripped it chasing larvae

Removal is a judgment call about risk, not a formula. A tree with one of these conditions over open lawn is a very different situation from the same tree over a driveway — and that judgment needs someone on site.