If you have ash trees on your property, you are about to suffer a big hit to the appearance of your property. Emerald Ash Borer has been detected on Prince Edward Drive and is undoubtedly spreading throughout our leafy residential neighborhood. The insect was first detected in North America in 2002 and its doing huge amounts of damage killing trees. The Ash Tree is an important part of the Toronto tree canopy and is largely planted on streets and along the ravines network therefore it is important to protect these trees. You can wait for the City and its dwindling budgets and resources to try and wrestle this huge problem to the ground for you, or you can shrewdly assess your own property- City and private trees alike, and take action now and have the trees on and abutting your property treated.
The Emerald Ash Borer is a small green beetle that looks for Ash Trees to feed and lay it’s eggs in. These eggs turn into larva that feed on the sap wood of the tree so not as many nutrients travel through the canopy of the tree. Here in the City of Toronto, if an Emerald Ash Borer infected tree is not treated, the Ash Tree will be dead within 5-10 years.
There are a number of local tree service companies that can treat your trees with a chemical injection that has a good track record but the important thing is to go look at your trees after reading up on superb websites such as: http://www.bioforest.ca/index.cfm?fuseaction=content&menuid=34&pageid=1062
also: http://www.toronto.ca/trees/eab.htm
Map of infestation: www.toronto.ca/trees/pdfs/EABupdatemap.pdf
This map shows mortality on PED south of Bloor as of Feb 2012- and widespread infection and mortality in our region.
While its not the ratepayers job or purpose to direct you to specific tree services, we include the following local companies (who won’t charge you a premium to travel long distances to assess your trees) . We submit the following list in the interests of swiftly addressing a spreading problem:
Davey Tree 416-241-7191
Cohen and Master 416-932-0622
Forest Glen 416-738-4536
Greenlawn: 905-290-1834