We are sorry to all our valuable visitors, but the Althouse Arboretum and its trails will be closed to the public until March 1st for Ash Tree removal. This is what a small insect can do!
.

We love our trees! Unfortunately, we have had to make the very difficult decision to remove all our Ash Trees on the properties of the Althouse Arboretum.  This is a result of an invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer. 

This insect burrows under the bark of the tree and eventually kills the trees As of this time there is no way to stop this insect and within just a couple years all Ash Trees will be affected and die.  This creates a safety hazard for visitors to the Arboretum. Since chemical treatment is cost prohibited, it was decided to remove all (almost 300) trees which will change the look of the Arboretum for several years.

This is more of a man-made issue than a natural one. This insect lives harmlessly in Asia, but when it was accidentally brought here to the US, there was no known predator and its population exploded without any checks. That is why we have this problem.

We are all deeply saddened by this… unfortunately, dead trees-especially ash-are a huge safety liability to our 10,000 annual visitors, leaving us no choice. However, we will do everything we can to reforest the property with native trees.

YES, absolutely you can help! The students will be leading community volunteers in March to start the clean-up. Right now it looks like the first weekend of spring, March 23/24 We will keep you posted. Thank you!

If you’d like to donate to our reforestation project you can do it here.

Sign up for our newsletter and subscribe to our blog to get all the news!