I hear ya. We have had a lot of mild winters over the last 10 years though. The last real cold one, where we had -20 for two weeks or more straight at night time, was around 2002 or 2003. It was only warming up to about 0 during the day for those weeks that winter. It may have been two winters back to back. I can't remember. But I remember them well because I was on the midnight shift during that time, and when you went outside and the wind was blowing, you remembered it! So did the milder winters make it perfect for them?
The ash trees taken by that cussed EAB around here are being slowly replaced by baby maples, cherry, oak and mulberry. Birds, squirrels wind and mother nature are working to fill in the void. Don't know if anything can stop the destruction of the √€¢%## !! EAB.
For you folks where the EAB has already destroyed the Ash in your area. Are you seeing any Ash left? Any new saplings of Ash coming up that are surviving?
Losing all the Ash trees in any area is sad. Once these bugs take hold there is little can be done to save the trees that have not already been infested. I don't know how or when we will get control, but we need to do something before the Ash is totally gone from our land. These insects don't just affect a few trees in a given area. They kill all of them. One or two may have some natural resistance, and our insecticides may save a few, but there needs to be many to have the diversity within the group to keep the Ash from succumbing to another insect or disease. As we become more of a global economy, the risk of importing more of these deadly insects, increases. A scary thought.
