Is an ash (green and white ash) a good tree to plant in Indiana?
Think hard about it — ash (green and white ash) is on the hazard list in central Indiana. EAB reached all 92 Indiana counties by 2017 and state projections put eventual ash losses near 95%. Ash was heavily planted here — a 2008 Indiana DNR street tree study put white ash in Indianapolis's top five street species at about 4.9% — so neighborhoods platted from the 1970s through the 1990s still have standing dead ash on the tree lawn.
What you'd be signing up to clean up
While alive, seed-bearing female ash drop dense mats of paddle-shaped samaras that pack gutters and reseed beds. The complaint that actually generates calls now is different: dead ash shed bark plates and dry limb wood continuously year-round, so homeowners describe finding sticks all over the yard every week — that is a diagnosis, not a maintenance issue.
Where to keep it away from
Ash is not a hardscape or sewer offender; you rarely get a call about ash roots lifting a drive the way you do with silver maple. What matters instead is that soil-applied systemic treatments (imidacloprid, dinotefuran drenches) depend on root uptake, so compacted subdivision clay, drought, and a root zone sitting in stripped subsoil all reduce how well a treatment actually takes.
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