The ash tree in my front yard taught me about pruning timing

I've been climbing for about six years now, mostly residential work around Columbus, and I always figured winter was the best time to prune everything. Then this spring I did a late April job on an old ash that had some serious dieback, and the owner asked why I was taking off so much live wood. I tried to explain the whole dormant season thing, but honestly the tree looked worse after I was done than before I started. A month later I drove past that same house and the crown had bounced back way better than I expected, new growth filling in all the gaps. That got me thinking about how ash trees respond differently than maples or oaks when you cut them late. I'm starting to think we lean too hard on one pruning calendar for every species, especially with all the emerald ash borer stress around here. Has anyone else noticed better recovery on ash when you wait until bud break instead of pruning in February?

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rowan_wells671mo ago

Funny you bring this up, cause my neighbor's got this gnarly old ash that he hacked at in February last year, and it looked like a corpse all summer. Then this past March he had some limb come down in a storm and had to cut it again right as buds were swelling, and that thing exploded with growth like it was showing off. I used to side with the whole "wait til dormancy" crowd too, but now I'm wondering if ash specifically just likes being cut when the sap's already moving. Maybe all that EAB pressure has changed how they heal, or maybe we've just been wrong about them this whole time. Either way, I've started telling homeowners to hold off on ash until early spring, and so far nobody's complained.

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