I was looking at the Mountain Ash in my front yard recently and I noticed several areas on the trunk and largest low branches where there are rings of what look like oval holes. None are very deep but these areas also are beginning to bulge slightly. There is also a long gash in the side of the trunk where the bark is completely missing and the wood seems to be rotting and breaking off. About six or seven years ago, this tree and its companion went through a phase where portions of the bark curled back and the tree was leaking sap. At the time, I had no interest in the trees beyond knowing that they supposedly had been planted when I was born. The companion tree has subsequently been cut down. On a related note, Seeing that the end seems to be coming for my mountain ash, I am wondering about gathering the pommes (there are more than I ever remember seeing) and planting as many as I can around my property. I have always been thoroughly confused by stratification and have never been able to successfully get anything from it, should I wait until the fall, gather the bunched and plant them around? I live in East Aurora, NY (20 minutes south of Buffalo) and our weather starts to become unpredictiable by the last weeks of september. Sometimes it gets cold and frosty early and sometimes we have warm weather until early December.
Upon doing some research, it seems that the holes are the work of sapsuckers, rather than disease or wood borers, which is a bit of a relief. But given the compromised nature of the tree due to the large gash, (what I now know to call a canker) should I continue to worry about the health of the tree?
