Emerald Ash Borer Treatment & Ash Removal in Frankfort, KY

Emerald Ash Borer Treatment and Ash Removal in Frankfort, KY

Emerald ash borer is established across Kentucky and untreated ash trees do not survive it. For a homeowner with one ash the question is simple. For anyone managing a property with a dozen of them, it is a budgeting problem — which ones are worth protecting, and in what order do the rest come down.

Inventory before you decide

On a property with multiple ash trees the useful first step is a count and a condition rating: which trees are still in good canopy, which are past the point of treatment, and which are close enough to a building or drive that they become urgent once dead.

That turns an open-ended problem into a schedule. Removing dead ash over several years on your terms is dramatically cheaper than removing them all at once under pressure.

The signs, in the order they appear

• Canopy thinning at the very top and working down
• Sprouting from the trunk and root flare below the damage
• Woodpecker “blonding” — pale flecked patches where bark has been stripped
• D-shaped exit holes roughly an eighth of an inch across
• Winding S-shaped galleries under loose bark
• Bark cracking vertically over old galleries

Treat or remove

Treatment protects a tree that still has most of its canopy and does not recover one that has lost the top third. That threshold is the decision.

It is also ongoing rather than curative — a protected tree stays protected only while treatment continues. For a large specimen shading a house, that can be worth it for many years. For a mid-size ash in a fencerow it usually is not.

Identification and management information for Kentucky landowners is published by the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology, and the USDA Forest Service tracks the pest nationally.

Dead ash gets harder every year

Ash killed by borer loses strength quickly and becomes unpredictable to climb. Many dead ash are taken from a lift rather than on rope for exactly that reason, and a tree that was a routine removal in year one can be a difficult one by year three.

Of all the tree work people defer, dead ash is the one where waiting most reliably costs more.

Common questions

Is my ash still treatable?

If it has lost roughly a third or more of its canopy, generally no. Above that there is a real decision to make and it is worth having someone look at the upper canopy.

How do I know it is an ash?

Opposite branching, compound leaves with five to nine leaflets, and diamond-patterned bark on mature trunks. Maple and dogwood are the other common opposite-branched yard trees here.

Can it spread to my other trees?

Only to other ash. Emerald ash borer does not attack maple, oak, or anything else. If a non-ash is declining, something else is the cause.

Can I keep the firewood?

Keep it on the property and burn it locally. Moving untreated firewood is a main way wood-boring pests reach new counties.

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Last updated August 2026