Fraxinus americana
Origin: Eastern North America
Improvement status: Wild
Seeds per packet: ~50
BOTANICAL SAMPLE - NOT GERMINATION TESTED
Life cycle: Perennial
White ash, also called American ash, has been one of the dominant hardwood tree species in eastern North America since time immemorial, but that status is now under severe threat. A tiny green beetle called the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) has already killed millions of trees (and loads of green ash, black ash, and blue ash too). First identified in Michigan in 2002, but likely present for some years before that, the beetle is native to northeastern Asia (Russia, China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia). As is typically the case with invasive pests, EAB is not a problem across its native range — where local ash species have developed resistance to the beetle, and various predators and parasitoid wasps help keep the population in check — but it has become a huge problem here, and is on its way to becoming a problem in western Europe as well. Yet all is not lost: even in areas devastated by the EAB, survivor trees — often called "lingering ashes" — manage to persist. Efforts are under way to identify and spread these resistant trees, but it will be a long time before ash trees return to their rightful place across eastern North American woodlands. We're hopeful that by encouraging more people to grow trees from seed — with each seed containing a unique genome, in contrast to planting nursery trees which have limited genetic diversity — we can help in the effort to find resistant white ash cultivars.
The wood of white ash is strong, durable, flexible, and shock resistant, properties that have famously made it the wood of choice for baseball bats, but it has also been used for furniture (see photo of the Tiffany chair featuring ash wood), tool handles, flooring, and much more. The trees — which can reach towering heights upwards of a hundred feet — also play a vital role in their ecosystems, supporting butterflies like the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, as well as various birds, squirrels, other rodents, and deer. Researchers have even found that decaying ash leaves provide a critically important food source for tadpoles during their development in ephemeral woodland pools (other species cannot eat the tannin-rich leaves), and frog numbers have already been seen to drop in places where ash numbers have already been decimated.
So we hope you'll see fit to try your hand at growing this iconic native tree — before it's too late.
This Louisiana-grown seed comes from the good folks at Sheffield's Seeds in Locke, New York.
GROWING TIPS: Ash seeds are a bit tricky to start. You could try fall sowing them, but the tried and true protocol is soaking the seeds for 12 hours, then warm-moist stratifying them (at room temperature) for 30 days, followed by cold-moist stratification for 60 days (in the fridge). Plant seeds 1/2" deep and keep seedlings well-mulched, weeded, and watered. Trees are adaptable to a range of rites, from full sun to full shade and various soil types and pH levels.
