Fraxinus Species, Arizona Ash, Leatherleaf Ash, Modesto Ash, Velvet Ash

The tree occupies a prominent place in my front yard (in Houston), and was already 30 ft tall when I bought the house. Yes, I would rathe...Read Morer have a live oak, and I have read all of the negatives. I spend about $300 per year to an arborist for deep feeding and anthracnose prophylaxis, and I have it thinned every other year. I must observe that last year when hurricane Ike shredded my neighbors' live oaks, my lowly ash lost nary a branch.

Good looking, fast growing, big and majestic, good for shade, decent fall color in the south. Was a good tree.... until hurricane Ike cam...Read Moree through. Many people in my parents neighborhood had them, yet ours was the only one uprooted. As long as you don't live in a hurricane area, it is a nice tree.

It saddens me to place a negative as "experience" here. There is little I can add to Starshinetx's description. My city planted a huge n...Read Moreumber of the Modesto Ash variety in then-new neighborhoods in the 1940's and 1950's. Many were placed within the 6-foot-wide street side parking strips. The City maintains them, after a fashion, poorly.

One tree was removed in the late 1970's, as the main trunk was split down the center. One photo highlights what appears to be the suggestion of an incipient trunk split facing it. It seems likely that the limb failures in my street tree were the result of pre-existing rot and/or insect damage, as it always occurs at a V-joint, rather than mid-limb, as might be expected of low hanging limbs over the street. This variety, anyway, seems not long-lived beyond the first 30 years, perhaps, diseased and deteriorating past that. Sad, as they are stunning trees in their prime, as illustrated by frostweed's photo

We have 4 of these trees which were planted in the mid 1950's making them 50 years old and 20-30 years past their prime. We are now bein...Read Moreg forced to remove the trees, at great expense, as they have begun to drop massive limbs and crushed anything below them (like my van and the cyclone fence that surrounds the house. The trees do not age well in my area and are prone to web worm, borers, stinging asps, ants and termites. Once attacked there seems to be no easy cure and once the insects get a good foothold in the tree the tree will rot and since the wood is so brittle to begin with they have a tendancy to drop massive limbs making it necessary to remove the tree...often at great expense. Since the wood is so brittle, it is poorly adapted to this area because of the forces of nature common here in hurricanes and tropical storms with high winds and torrential rains. The shallow roots give way in times when the ground is over saturated and high winds catch the canopy and topple the tree. But, more often than not, the long brittle limbs will snap before taking the tree over. If planted too close (within 20-30 feet) of a house or other structure, the results become disastrous as the heavy limbs will fall through a building or crush a vehicle under them, as we discovered firsthand.
I would highly recommend that anyone in the Gulf Coast area planning to use these trees, think long and hard about the future consequences which could in fact be extremely costly. In spite of the fact that local builders love to plant them because they are so fast growing, they remain a very poor choice for this area.

AN ADDED NOTE:
My home in Santa Fe, TX is only a handful of miles from Galveston Island. On the evening of Septemeber 12, 2008 we experienced the devastation of Hurricane Ike. Unfortunately, we had NOT been able to have our trees removed and the one nearest the house broke off and fell over into my house, totally destroying it and leaving us homeless.

My recommendation to anyone with an aging ash tree showing ANY signs of disease or rot is to get rid of it as fast as you can. There is NOT a way to save the tree. They have only a 30 year lifespan and past that are just not worth the damage they can cause.

If you are considering planting one I leave you with these suggestions based on my experience with them.
1 ) Plant them at least 75 feet from any structures.
2 ) Have a professional tree trimmer care for them and trim them on a yearly basis
3 ) Do NOT build or leave anything near them that you care about as when they fall or break, they destroy everything in their path.
4 ) Make sure they receive plenty of water and are fertilized on a regular basis to keep them healthy.
5 ) Don't plant them within 50 feet of a septic drain system.

If you choose an ash, I wish you better luck than we've had. Yes, they grow fast and huge but they also grow dangerous with age.

Starshine

I am not 100% certain, but I think this is the ash that people have planted around here. The trees were probably planted in the 1950s an...Read Mored now they are huge and beautiful. The fall color is nice. I don't have one in my yard so I can't say anything about invasive roots or lack thereof, or any cultural problems, but they don't appear to have any kind of disease or pest problem here.

San Antonio, Tx.
The Arizona ash is a fast growing deciduous tree native to Arizona and parts of Southwestern New Mexico. It is wi...Read Moredely planted as a shade tree where summers are long, hot and dry and where soils are alkaline. Foliage turns yellow in autumn. The male and female flowers are on separate trees with the fruit being in the form of seeds that hang in clusters. The fruit will grow on female trees only if it is near a male tree. It can be decimated by borers (under the bark and into the wood layers) in the summer and its roots, when the tree is older, protrude from the ground. It is a very poor choice for Texas landscapes in the long run. After the borers infiltrate the tree, it rapidly declines and must be removed. I would not recommend this tree at least in my area.