Month: May 2012

Visitors to Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Posted on by Leigh Greenwood

The National Parks Service contains some of the most diverse landscapes imaginable, and of course each Park or Monument deserves the right to choose how they protect their heritage from invasive species threats. Don't Move Firewood thinks it is smart to keep visitors from bringing firewood into the parks, especially if those visitors are coming from known high risk areas. With that in mind, we want to give a big shout out to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for their very easy to read list of quarantined counties, accurate as of May 2012, to educate people on where firewood is absolutely prohibited by arriving with visitors from that county. Nice job! It makes it really easy for us to answer this recent question in our advice column;

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

We live in Blount County (TN). Cades Cove (valley within Great Smoky Mountains) is in Blount County.  Can we take our fire wood?

Yours,

Dorothy in Tennessee

 

Dear Dorothy,

Because Blount County is on the list of quarantined counties, even though your destination is in the same county, you still can't take firewood with you into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I know that's a little confusing, but the idea is that there are extra precautions in place to keep pests like the emerald ash borer out of the National Park. Thanks for asking, and enjoy your trip!

 

 

 

 

Do you send DVDs to Turkey?

Posted on by Leigh Greenwood

Fun question today for our advice column…

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood

I would like to request a free DVD of yours. In the form page, I can not select my country. I'm from outside of US. If it is possible, would you please send me a copy?

Yours,

Ozgehan from Turkey

 

Dear Ozgehan,

We don't send our DVD overseas, so I'm afraid the answer is no. Instead of watching our videos on DVD, you could simply watch them on YouTube.com/dontmovefirewood, or you can download them for free from the iTunes store. As an important side note, we do send out materials to Canada and Mexico in limited quantities- but Turkey is out of our range.Thanks for asking!

Shorthand from New Hampshire

Posted on by Leigh Greenwood

Great and short inquiry this week from the Granite State!

Dear Don’t Move Firewood,

Living in N.H. and would like to know if you have your own trees from yard cut down can we bring them to our campground in N.H.?

Yours, Marilyn

Editor’s Note: The original answer to this question (written in 2012) is no longer applicable. Please refer to our Firewood Map for current information on the topic of firewood and the state of New Hampshire.

All the right questions

Posted on by Leigh Greenwood

I'm not sure how this ended up in my inbox, but I'm so glad they asked…

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

If we can't bring firewood can we purchase firewood there at the camp site and how much do we get at what price? i have reserved a place for a week and i need to know what it will take to have a fun and enjoyable birthday weekend camping and fishing.

Yours,

Lewis

 

Dear Lewis,

These are great questions! I want to highlight how smart you are- you obviously saw that you can't bring firewood to the campsite where you registered, so you are planning ahead. That's awesome. This is EXACTLY what everyone should do, with one exception, in that you accidentally emailed the wrong person. But I'm not trying to poke fun, I swear. Everyone makes mistakes. Good luck, and thanks!

 

Note to blog readers; we are emailing Lewis today personally to let him know of his error so he can contact his actual campsite.

 

On pesticides and prevention

Posted on by Leigh Greenwood

An interesting question popped into my inbox this weekend, about prevention from insect infestations, and use of pesticides.

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

I lost several ash trees to pests this last couple seasons here in n.w. Ohio. I am concerned about a large maple tree. Nothing visible yet but as a precaution I wonder if a treatment of Lambda-cyhalothrin would be in order. It is a product that has worked well on the beetle (lady bug). Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Yours,

Roger in Ohio

 

Dear Roger,

I'm sorry to hear about your ash trees. I don't know if they were killed by the emerald ash borer specifically, but I know that the EAB has a lot of infested areas in Northwest Ohio, so it seems likely. What may make you feel better is that your maple tree is not under immediate, urgent, threat from the Asian longhorned beetle, which is present in limited pockets near Cincinnati. Of course, that's a different part of Ohio from where you live. Therefore the preventative use of pesticides, such as you mention, is likely to be a waste of your money in this context.

 

However, in general, we here at Don't Move Firewood don't have expertise in these things- that's what a licensed, experienced, and knowledgeable tree care expert should do for you. For all I know, there are native insects that you might be facing in your part of Ohio, and judicious use of pesticides to save your favorite tree could be in order. While researching your question, I came upon an excellent short impartial guide to helping you make a decision on hiring a tree care professional (visit Hiring a Tree Care Company). I highly advise that you find a reputable and well regarded tree care professional in your area to help you with your treatment (or not) of your maple tree.

 

Good luck! And please, don't move any of the wood from your dead ash trees!