A tale of three trees

These are Elm trees. I guess I don't know much about trees because I thought they were Ash trees and the dying one was succumbing to the Emerald Ash Borer - a pest that is expected to wipe out 100% of the Ash trees in Ottawa (all varieties of Ash) - this will make a big change in Ottawa as 25% of the trees are Ash trees. There are no known natural predators to the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), except for a tiny wasp and woodpeckers, but those aren't prevalent enough to arrest the EAB. Ontario and the federal government has spent a couple of hundred million dollars trying to prevent the EAB from leaving the infected areas and there are rules that if an EAB-infected treee is cut down that the wood cannot be taken off the property.

But back to the Elm trees. It turns out that the middle elm tree that is dying is infected with the Dutch Elm Disease. We will have to get the tree cut down and hopefully the other two trees will survive. I bought some fertilizer for the trees to hopefully help them to be stronger.

Update (Aug 31): it turns out that the two trees that are together are both dying. Dutch Elm Disease can be passed from tree to tree if their roots are in close contact. DED is like arterioscloris in people, it stops the sap from flowing in the tree and that's what kills it. DED is usually carried from an infected tree to another tree by a beetle.


Fortunately, this is the first bird fatality that we have had this year. It was a young bird, probably just hatched this year, unfortunately. We haven't been drawing the curtains over that window, but have not started doing that again.