A straight answer on whether your ash is worth saving.
Creative Tree & Stump LLC is a Brighton, CO-based tree removal company serving 22 communities across Adams, Weld, Jefferson, Boulder, Broomfield, and Denver counties. Because we both treat and remove ash, we have no thumb on the scale — Shawn Brandau, an ISA Certified Arborist working the Front Range since 1991, gives you the honest call, and the company is fully insured. A treatment company that only treats has every reason to recommend treatment; we do both, so we can simply tell you the truth about whether your tree is worth the investment.
The two paths have very different money shapes. Treatment is a modest recurring cost: a trunk injection priced by the tree’s diameter, repeated about every two years for as long as you keep the tree. Over a decade that adds up, but each cycle is small, and it keeps a mature shade tree alive and working the whole time — shading the house, holding its value, and saving you the years it takes a replacement to catch up.
Removal is a single larger expense — and usually not the end of it. Once a tree is gone, replanting and then waiting years for a new tree to provide the same shade, privacy and property value is its own cost. For a big, healthy ash in a good spot, ongoing protection often works out cheaper than tree removal and replacement over the life of the tree. For a small, declining or poorly placed ash, removal is the smarter spend, since you would be pouring money into a tree that does not justify it.
The decision comes down to the tree in front of us, so we assess it properly rather than guessing. We estimate how much of the canopy has died back, look for the tell-tale signs of active EAB — D-shaped exit holes, bark splits, woodpecker flecking and trunk sprouts — and evaluate the trunk and structure for soundness. Then we factor in the things only you can weigh: where the tree sits, what it is worth to you, and whether anything valuable — a house, a garage, a power line — would be hit if it failed.
From there you get a clear recommendation, not a sales pitch. Around Boulder — where EAB was first found in Colorado — homeowners have been making this exact decision the longest, and the pattern holds everywhere: healthy, valued ash caught early are worth treating, and far-gone trees are worth removing. We tell you which one you have, and we assess ash trees across all 22 of the communities we serve.
Shawn Brandau has advised Front Range ash owners since 1991 — an ISA Certified Arborist who profits either way, full insurance on every job, and a recommendation based on your tree rather than our invoice.
How trunk injection protects healthy ash, and the full treatment overview.
EAB treatment →Safe removal of EAB-killed ash, which turn brittle and hazardous fast.
Ash & EAB removal →Removing declined and hazardous trees before they fail.
Dead & diseased removal →Treat a healthy, valued ash with less than about 30% canopy loss; remove one that is past roughly 30 to 50% dieback, in poor health, structurally unsound, or low-value. The earlier you decide, the more options you have, because a tree treated before heavy decline has the best chance of recovery. An on-site assessment from an ISA Certified Arborist gives you a definite answer rather than a guess.
Once a tree has lost more than roughly 30 to 50% of its canopy, treatment is unlikely to save it, because too little living tissue remains to move the insecticide and recover. Trees that far gone are better removed before they become hazardous, since EAB-killed ash turn brittle and unpredictable quickly, making them dangerous and costly to take down later.
It depends on the tree. Treatment is a smaller recurring cost every two years; removal is a single larger cost, usually plus replanting. For a large, healthy ash, treating often costs less over time than removing and replacing it; for a small or declining one, removal wins. We can lay both numbers side by side so you can see the long-term trade-off clearly before you decide.
We assess canopy dieback, signs of active EAB, and the trunk and structure, then weigh the tree’s location, value and what it would damage if it failed. You get a clear treat-or-remove recommendation based on the tree, not a sales target — and because we perform both services, there is no incentive to push you toward one or the other.
Usually yes — but with a different, non-ash species to add diversity and avoid the same risk. We can recommend Front Range-appropriate trees and handle removal of the old ash, so you start fresh with something better suited to the site, the soil and the local climate.
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