Becoming An Emerald Ash Borer Embassador ….
EEKS Is There A New Disease Out There?
This year I volunteered to the City of Toronto to become an Emerald Ash Borer Embassador. That means that I am helping to make people in our City aware of the Emerald Ash Borer problem that is attacking all of our Ash trees and will kill them off over the next 5-10 years. Given that approximately 8.4% of our tree canopy is Ash that’s a lot of trees to lose, about 860,000 to be exact by roughly 2017.
There are treatment options…. they are not cheap. This year I chose to treat the 5 Ash Trees on my property and depending on the girth of your tree this could run from about $250.00 per tree to roughly $450.00 per tree. The alternative is to lose your Ash trees and your cover ( shade) pay the cost of taking down the tree and having to plant new. Since City of Toronto gardens are so tight and narrow and access for diggers to get in is not very good you cannot re-plant with a 20 ‘ tree. So preservation is a serious consideration.
Removal of a tree runs on average from about $1000.00 to $3000.00 depending on the height, the girth and of course who you call. Treatment is required every 2nd year and the thought is that after 5-6 years the ash borer will have killed everything it can here and will probably move on once there is no food to eat so treatment would no longer be necessary. So you can weigh the cost benefits of either plan.
Personally my garden and home would not be the same without my wonderful trees so I must try to save them.
However, if the cost to try and save your trees seems like too much(nothing comes with an ironclad guarantee) the City of Toronto is offering a subsidized tree for your backyard. This month I am enclosing all the info on this service for you.
An arborist will come to your home to discuss which tree of the group on the pamphlet would be best suited to your yard and work with your existing foliage. The city will send a planter to make sure the job is done properly. Given the cost of a tree at a nursery and the cost of installation the Cities price is a bargain you shouldn’t miss if you need new trees for your property.
To get involved with the Emerald Ash Borer project go to http://www.yourleaf.org/become-eab-ambassador