McHenry County Blog

Wayne White had his hose put away by the time I got this photo of him and his daughters boyfriend.

It was the first half of June, so I wasn’t surprised when Master Arborist Wayne White knocked on the door.

I was surprised and disappointed that he had finished treating our ash tree before I had a chance to take some photos.

Reflecting upon his fervor to save ash trees, I thought of Johnny Appleseed.

Although the apple seed sower was on the front end of the growth process, his enthusiasm for propagating his favorite fruit tree cannot have been any greater than that of White’s in saving ash trees.

The red dots show where the Emerald Ash Borer has been spotted in Illinois.

I won’t go through how he got into the business. You can read that here.

What’s he done lately?

He is treating 385 white ash trees on the public rights of way in Downers Grove.

Wayne White gets really serious when he discusses his mission.

A nearby town, Glen Ellyn, requires residents who treat their trees to get a permit.

Before you go into shock, as I almost did when I heard about it, listen to the reason:

It’s so the village can find out what treatments work and which don’t.

Put in that light, the idea sounds like a good one unless one is just willing to give up and saw down all the ash trees.

White was off to Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The local forester is injecting the insecticide into the ground around the trees, but White’s expert touch is needed to inject it into the tree trunks.

The Wisconsin forester told White that his state’s association meetings consist mainly of how to use infected ash wood.

Locally, ash trees are dead along the McHenry-Kane County line in Algonquin. That means they are probably in the early stages of infection farther north. Confirmed sitings in McHenry County include

Emerald Ash Borer

• Algonquin
• Crystal Lake
• Huntley
• Lake in the Hills
• Marengo
• Woodstock

Measure 15 miles from there and you pretty much have all of McHenry County.

And, the Illinois Department of Agriculture issued a press release June 9th about the emerald ash borer having been found in Loves Park’s Rockcut State Park in Winnebago County near Rockford.

Unless people start treating them, we’ll be hearing the sound of saws–just as I did in the fall of 1960 in my freshman year at Oberlin College as the elms were being disposed of.

The article is gone into “pay to see” archives by now, but it was interesting to read Brian Slupski’s article on the spread of the Emerald Ash Borers in McHenry County.

He quoted a Huntley official as taking about cutting down infected trees. A Woodstock official is cited.

The reporter quotes the state Ag Department’s Paul Deizman as identifying Kane and McHenry County’s as “ground zero” for the infestation in Illinois.

But the article had a pessimistic tone.

No ash trees in ten years.

Treatment, such as we have had applied to the big ash tree that our neighbor Walt Southern convinced my father not to chop down because it was “an ash,” is mentioned, but the article says it’s expensive.

No estimate is made of the cost of removing dead ash trees.

Or the value of their shade in lessening air conditioning cost.

No one could be found who thought the trees were worth saving.

Ash tree shading our bedroom.

Wayne White, the Master Arborist treating our tree, is treating trees all over Cederburg, Wisconsin. The recommendation of Cedarburg’s arborist is here.

Here's Wayne White, the man who is saving the ash tree that shades half of our Lakewood home.

The Rockford Register-Star reported Emerald Ash Borers in Boone County, just to the west of Marengo and Harvard.

The paper points out that the little green bugs leave a D-shaped hole when it bores out of the tree.

Infected trees have to be cut down and Paul Deizman from the Illinois Department of Agriculture is assuming that all ash trees in Boone, not just the ones found infected in Belvidere have their devastating presence.

“Plan for the death of your tree,” he advises.

The Boone County strategy, as I read what County Board member
Marshall Newhouse is saying, is to identify the ash trees on public rights-of-way and prepare to cut them down. There are no plans to try to save any ash trees in Boone County.

Such pessimism.

Elsewhere, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, for instance, every tree is being treated. That’s what Wayne White, seen above next to his yard sign with its toll-free number (877-SAVE ASH).   I expect Cedarburg will advertise itself as one of the few towns in the Midwest where people can see ash trees.  Maybe it will change its name to “Ashville.”

The Ag Dept employee talks of possible treatment, but is ever so pessimistic.

“It’s like chemotherapy,” he said. “There’s a risk that the treatment will fail.”

The ash trees in the top photo were treated by Wayne White; the ones below, which are just across the street, were not.

Well, duh.

Sometimes it succeeds.

Certified Master Arborist Wayne White’s experience is that five years of treatment will save a tree.  That’s how long he had treated the ash trees you see at the Detroit area airport entrance road.  The ash trees that are dead are across the street.  They were not treated.

The Illinois ash borer experts says the treatment is costly. You can find pricing in this article.

And, there’s the possibility that the treatment might succeed, as has the treatment by itinerant Certified Arborist Wayne White on the ash tree towering above our home in McHenry County. Here’s his email address:  Save the Ash.