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Our first defense is to remove and dispose of sick and dead elms, including those on City and private property.
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Best to do that by mid-April 2014, before the elm bark beetles emerge and spread the fungus to healthy elms.
Dutch elm disease attacked our historic American elms with a vengeance in 2012 and 2013. Many folks had assumed that our magnificent surviving elms were resistant to the disease.
Not so, as it turns out.
In Spring 2012, Saratoga still had at least 25 large surviving elms (with a diameter of at least 20″). By the end of 2013, five were dead and others were showing signs of the disease.