I've taken down more ash trees in the last two years than in the decade before that combined. Not because homeowners suddenly decided to clear them out — because they're dying. All at once. Across the whole Lakes Region.
If you have a white ash on your property and you haven't looked closely at it lately, the honest bet is that it's already infested. The bug that's killing them — emerald ash borer — got to New Hampshire in 2013 and has been working its way through our ash population ever since. It's here. It's everywhere. And what you do in the next year or two matters a lot more than what you do in year four.
What EAB actually does
Emerald ash borer is a small, metallic-green beetle. Adults are the size of a grain of rice. They don't kill the tree directly — the larvae do, by tunneling under the bark and carving serpentine galleries that cut off the tree's ability to move water and nutrients between its roots and its canopy.
Once a tree is infested, the clock is running. Most white ash in central NH die within three to five years of the first beetles arriving. There's no fighting it off naturally. American ash trees didn't evolve with this beetle — they have no defense.
Three signs your ash is in trouble
You don't need to catch a beetle to know you have EAB. The tree tells you, if you know where to look.
- Bark “blonding.” Woodpeckers love EAB larvae. They strip off the rough outer bark to get at the grubs, and what they leave behind looks pale, almost blond, against the darker untouched bark. If a section of your ash trunk suddenly looks two shades lighter than the rest, that's blonding, and it's the single most reliable early sign.
- D-shaped exit holes. When adult beetles emerge from inside the tree, they cut a hole about 1/8 inch wide — shaped exactly like the letter D. A round hole is something else. A D-shaped hole is EAB, and there's no other bug that leaves that mark in ash.
- Crown dieback from the top down. Ash under attack thins from the top of the canopy first. You'll see whole branches leaf out late or not at all, while the lower half of the tree still looks mostly okay. By the time the whole crown is thin, the tree is nearly done.
“If a section of your ash trunk suddenly looks two shades lighter than the rest, that's blonding — and it's the single most reliable early sign of EAB.”
Treat, or take it down
You have two real options once an ash is infested, and the right choice depends mostly on how far along the tree is and how much it matters to you.
Treatment works — but only if the tree still has most of its canopy. A certified applicator injects insecticide into the trunk every one to three years, depending on the product. Costs around $10 to $15 per inch of trunk diameter, per treatment cycle. For a 20-inch ash, that's $200 to $300 every couple of years, forever. It's the right call if the tree is a yard specimen you genuinely love, it's still healthy, and you're willing to commit to the ongoing cost.
Removal is the right call for everything else. And the timing matters here more than homeowners expect. A healthy ash is a normal tree job — rigging, felling, cleanup, done. A three-years-dead ash is a much harder job, because the wood gets brittle in a way that other dead hardwoods don't. It snaps unpredictably. Climbers won't climb it. Cranes and bucket trucks become non-negotiable. Costs go up accordingly.
Why a dead ash is more dangerous than other dead trees
This is the part that surprises homeowners. Most hardwoods rot slowly — oak, maple, beech. They hold their structural integrity for a decade or more after they die, because the wood decays from the outside in. You can usually take one down safely years after it's gone, because the core is still sound.
Ash doesn't do that. EAB-killed ash dries out fast and becomes brittle throughout the trunk, not just the surface. The branches snap off without warning. The main trunk can fail mid-fell. Even experienced climbers stay off dead ash for exactly this reason.
This is the practical math: a living but infested ash might cost $600 to take down. The same tree, left for four or five years until it's fully dead and brittle, can easily run $1,500 to $2,500 — because now it requires a crane, or has to be dismantled in smaller sections, or poses enough risk that whoever's doing the work is charging for that risk. Waiting costs money.
What I see on NH properties
Most Lakes Region properties have more ash than the owners realize. Ash grows fast in the open, leafs out beautifully, and was a common landscape choice in the 70s and 80s. A lot of the 40- to 60-foot shade trees on properties around Hill, Bristol, and Franklin are ash — especially the ones with straight trunks and upright branching.
If you can't tell what you have, that's the easiest thing for me to check. I don't charge to walk a property and identify trees. We can look at what's there, figure out what's ash and what's not, and if any of them are showing EAB signs, we talk through whether treatment or removal makes sense for that specific tree.
What we do
I remove hazard and EAB-killed ash across the Lakes Region, with the right equipment for whatever stage the tree is in — from still-standing-but-infested to dangerously brittle. Honest estimates, no pressure on trees that can still be treated, and straightforward pricing that reflects what the job actually takes.