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Reference tables

Every rating in this guide, in one place

The twenty-two species profiles, sixteen pest and disease entries, and twenty symptom guides on this site each carry a set of structured ratings: how a tree holds up in wind, whether it belongs near a house, how serious a problem is, how quickly it needs an answer. Sorted and stacked up like this, they become something you can compare, quote, and cite.

One thing to be clear about before you use any of it. These are our assessments, aggregated — written profile by profile from the extension research, state forestry publications, and arboricultural guidance cited on each page. They are not a field survey, not a census of Kansas trees, and not a substitute for someone standing next to the tree in question. The method section sets out what they are and what they are not.

Storm resistance

How Kansas species are rated in wind and ice

This is the table people arrive for, and the one worth being most careful with. Each species carries a single rating — poor, fair, or good — plus the reasoning behind it. The rating is an assessment of the species, made from published wood-strength and branch-architecture research. It is not a count of trees that came down.

All 22 profiled species with their storm resistance rating, siting rating near a house, growth rate, and mature height. Sorted by storm rating, worst first, then alphabetically.
SpeciesStorm resistanceNear a houseGrowth rateMature height (ft)
BoxelderPoorAvoidFast35–50
Bradford (Callery) PearPoorCautionFast30–40
Eastern CottonwoodPoorAvoidFast60–100
Siberian ElmPoorAvoidFast50–70
Silver MaplePoorAvoidFast50–80
American ElmFairCautionFast60–80
Black LocustFairCautionFast40–70
Green AshFairCautionFast50–60
Northern CatalpaFairCautionFast40–60
White MulberryFairAvoidFast30–50
American SycamoreGoodCautionFast70–100
Austrian PineGoodCautionModerate40–60
Black WalnutGoodCautionModerate50–75
Bur OakGoodGoodSlow60–80
Chinese Elm (Lacebark Elm)GoodGoodModerate40–50
Common HackberryGoodGoodModerate40–60
Eastern Red CedarGoodGoodModerate30–50
Eastern RedbudGoodGoodModerate15–25
Honey Locust (thornless)GoodGoodFast40–70
Northern Red OakGoodGoodModerate60–75
Osage OrangeGoodCautionModerate30–50
Pin OakGoodCautionFast60–70

A pattern in the ratings, and what it is worth

The table rates ten of the twenty-two species below good for storm resistance. All of them are also rated fast-growing. Of the twelve rated good, three are fast growers.

That is a real feature of the table, and it is also the weakest kind of finding, so here is the caveat with it. Both ratings were written from the same body of research on wood density and branch attachment — fast growth generally means lighter, weaker wood. The agreement between the two columns reflects one line of reasoning applied twice, not two independent observations landing in the same place. Read it as a rule of thumb for choosing a tree, not as evidence of anything.

Poorfive of twenty-two species

Rated likely to drop limbs or split at a fork in the wind, ice, and hail this state gets. The rating describes a species, not a tree: a well-formed specimen in a sheltered spot can outlive it, and a badly placed one can fail sooner.

  • Silver Maple

    The tree Kansas crews visit most after a windstorm. Fast growth produces weak wood, and the multiple trunks that form tight V-shaped unions with bark trapped inside them split apart under ice and straight-line wind.

  • Eastern Cottonwood

    Brittle wood on an enormous frame. Mature cottonwoods routinely shed limbs the size of small trees in Kansas thunderstorm winds, and those failures are dangerous mostly because of sheer scale.

  • Bradford (Callery) Pear

    The defining flaw of the species. A dozen or more limbs rise from nearly the same point on the trunk at very tight angles, trapping bark inside each union. Kansas ice and straight-line wind split those trees apart, usually somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five years old.

  • Siberian Elm

    Brittle. It sheds small limbs in almost any wind and larger ones in ice, and accumulates deadwood faster than most trees its size. Cleanup is a recurring cost rather than a one-time event.

  • Boxelder

    Poor. Weak wood, frequent co-dominant stems, and generally poor form mean it sheds limbs readily in Kansas wind and ice.

Fairfive of twenty-two species

Rated to hold together in ordinary Kansas wind and to give way in the harder events — a heavy ice load, a straight-line gust front, or a storm arriving on the back of a drought year.

  • American Elm

    The classic vase form spreads long, arching limbs over a wide area, so ice loading is the main hazard. Wood strength is fair; the risk comes from limb length and the size of the area beneath.

  • Green Ash

    Fair while healthy; over-mature trees develop weak unions. The bigger issue is what happens after emerald ash borer — a killed ash becomes brittle remarkably fast and is dangerous to climb, so dead ash need removal sooner than other dead trees.

  • Northern Catalpa

    Fair. The wood is brittle and the enormous leaves catch wind like sails; hail shreds them. Expect limb loss in severe storms and a great deal of coarse litter afterward.

  • White Mulberry

    Fair. The wood is moderately weak and limbs break in strong wind, though the tree itself is hard to kill.

  • Black Locust

    Fair. The wood itself is very strong and famously rot-resistant, but form is often poor and borer-riddled limbs break unpredictably.

Goodtwelve of twenty-two species

Rated to carry wind and ice well for its size, on the strength of wood density and how its branches attach. Good is a comparison against the rest of this list rather than a promise. Any tree with decay, a girdling root, or a co-dominant fork can fail whatever its species.

  • Bur Oak

    Among the most storm-reliable large trees in the state. Strong wood and wide, well-attached branch angles carry straight-line wind and ice loading well. Failures are usually limited to over-extended lower limbs on open-grown trees.

  • Pin Oak

    Sound wood and a strongly pyramidal form with good branch attachments. A healthy pin oak handles Kansas wind well; a chlorotic, declining one is a different tree entirely and sheds deadwood constantly.

  • Northern Red Oak

    Strong wood and generally sound branch attachments — one of the more storm-reliable large shade trees available in eastern Kansas.

  • Common Hackberry

    Good. Sound wood and reasonable branch structure put it among the better large natives for Kansas wind and ice, though old trees carry deadwood that is worth clearing before storm season.

  • Honey Locust (thornless)

    Good. The fine, open foliage lets wind pass through rather than catching it. Over-mature trees can drop sizeable limbs, and trees weakened by canker are noticeably more failure-prone.

  • Black Walnut

    Good. Strong, dense wood and sound branch structure; storm failure is uncommon in a healthy tree.

  • Eastern Red Cedar

    Good. Dense and wind-firm, which is exactly why it forms the backbone of Kansas windbreaks. Heavy wet snow or ice can splay multi-stemmed trees apart at the base.

  • Osage Orange

    Excellent. The wood is among the densest and most rot-resistant in North America — the reason hedge posts routinely outlast the fences stapled to them.

  • Eastern Redbud

    Good for its size. The main weakness is multi-trunk plants splitting at the base where the stems meet, particularly under ice.

  • American Sycamore

    Good for its size, with strong wood and sound structure. The risk is scale rather than weakness: anything that does come down off a mature sycamore is very large.

  • Austrian Pine

    Good. Strong wood and a dense, well-anchored form handle Kansas wind and ice well.

  • Chinese Elm (Lacebark Elm)

    Substantially stronger wood than Siberian elm. The main structural issue is co-dominant leaders on young nursery stock, which are easy to correct early and awkward to fix later.

Placement

Which trees belong near a house, and which do not

The second rating every profile carries is about placement: whether the species is a reasonable neighbour to a foundation, a drive, a patio, or a buried service line. Roots and mature spread decide most of it. The note under each name is the specific reason, not a general warning.

Of the five species rated avoid, four are also rated poor for storm resistance — the combination that puts a tree crew on a roof. Root behaviour is quoted in full for that group, because roots are usually the deciding factor; for the other two it sits on the profile page.

Avoidfive of twenty-two species

Not a tree to put within reach of a house, a drive, a patio, or a buried service line. Where one is already established the rating is a description of what to expect and what to watch, not an instruction to remove it.

  • Silver Maple

    Not a tree to plant near a house, drive, or service line. If you have inherited a healthy mature one, structural pruning is almost always a better investment than removal.

    Roots. Aggressive, shallow, and opportunistic. Surface roots lift sidewalks, patios, and drives, and fine roots will exploit any crack in an older clay sewer lateral. This is the single most common root-damage complaint in older Kansas neighborhoods.

  • Eastern Cottonwood

    Magnificent along a creek, pond, or big open lawn; a genuine liability crowding a house. Keep it well away from structures, drives, and buried lines.

    Roots. Wide, shallow, and strongly water-seeking. Cottonwood roots are a well-documented hazard to sewer laterals, septic fields, and shallow foundations. Give a new one at least 50 feet of clearance from anything buried.

  • Siberian Elm

    Avoid. Between constant limb drop, aggressive roots, and prolific seeding, it is the wrong tree next to a house, drive, or patio.

    Roots. Shallow, greedy, and competitive. Hard on lawns and neighboring plantings, and quick to find moisture around foundations and laterals.

  • White Mulberry

    Avoid, mainly for the fruit. Ripe mulberries stain drives, patios, siding, and cars for weeks, and birds spread the stain well beyond the canopy.

    Roots. Shallow, aggressive, and opportunistic around paving and older sewer laterals — a poor neighbor to anything buried.

  • Boxelder

    Avoid. Beyond weak wood, female trees feed the boxelder bugs that mass on sunny south and west walls each fall and work their way indoors.

    Roots. Shallow and fibrous, competing hard with lawn and nearby plantings but not usually damaging to structures.

Cautionten of twenty-two species

Plantable near a house only if the specific constraint named in each note is designed around — usually distance from the foundation, sometimes the mature spread, sometimes what the tree drops and where.

  • Bradford (Callery) Pear

    Use caution. The tree is small enough that a failure rarely destroys a roof, but splits routinely land on cars, fences, and walkways with no warning.

  • Pin Oak

    Reasonable near a home in eastern Kansas where soil pH allows it. In central and western Kansas, choose a bur, chinkapin, or shumard oak instead and skip the decades of chlorosis treatment.

  • American Elm

    Use caution: give it room for a wide crown and expect surface roots on moist sites. A healthy mature elm near a home is worth protecting rather than pre-emptively removing.

  • Green Ash

    Use caution, and not because of the tree's habits. Any ash near a structure now carries a standing decision: commit to preventive treatment on a schedule, or plan removal before it dies and becomes hazardous.

  • Black Walnut

    Use caution — not for structural reasons but for what falls. Nuts drop hard enough to dent a car and stain concrete and drives black, and juglone rules out a garden nearby.

  • Osage Orange

    Use caution with wild trees: softball-sized hedge apples fall hard, and thorns puncture tires and mower tubes. Thornless, fruitless male cultivars make a genuinely good tough-site tree near a home.

  • Northern Catalpa

    Use caution. Give it a big lawn or a back corner where brittle limbs and heavy litter can fall without consequence.

  • American Sycamore

    Avoid on a standard lot. Spectacular in a park, on an acreage, or along a creek, but on a typical city lot it eventually dominates everything from the roofline to the sewer line.

  • Austrian Pine

    Fine near a home as a screen or specimen. The real caution is diversification: after decades of pine wilt losses, planting a row of two-needle pines is a bet worth avoiding.

  • Black Locust

    Use caution. Thorns at the leaf nodes, aggressive suckering, and brittle borer-damaged limbs make it a poor choice close to a house — though the fragrant May flowers are genuinely worth having somewhere on a property.

Goodseven of twenty-two species

Reasonable near a house at a sensible distance, on the strength of root behaviour and structure. It still means planning for the crown the tree will have in forty years rather than the one on the nursery lot.

  • Bur Oak

    One of the better large trees to site near a home, provided you respect the eventual footprint — plan for a crown 60 to 80 feet across and keep the trunk at least 30 feet from the foundation.

  • Northern Red Oak

    A good choice near a home where there is room for a 45 to 65 foot crown. Strong structure and deep roots make it a low-worry large tree.

  • Common Hackberry

    One of the better large trees to site near a Kansas home. Deep roots, sound wood, and real drought tolerance, with a crown that stays within a predictable footprint.

  • Honey Locust (thornless)

    A good near-home choice. The filtered shade lets lawn grow underneath, the tiny leaflets need no raking, and the roots stay out of trouble.

  • Eastern Red Cedar

    Good near homes as a screen or windbreak. Keep it clear of a prized apple or crabapple — cedar-apple rust needs both hosts to complete its cycle, and separation is the simplest control.

  • Eastern Redbud

    One of the best small trees for a Kansas yard. Patio-friendly size, roots that stay put, and small enough to sit comfortably under power lines.

  • Chinese Elm (Lacebark Elm)

    A good near-home choice and one of the better replacements when a Siberian elm or an ash comes out. Reasonable size, sound wood, attractive bark, and few serious problems.

Pests & diseases

What each problem in the library actually costs you

The pest library grades every entry on one axis: whether the problem costs you a season, a limb, or the tree. Hosts are the species profiled on this site that the entry names — not a complete host list for the organism, which is on each entry page.

Usually fatalfive of sixteen entries

Once established in a susceptible tree, this generally ends in removal. Effort is better spent protecting the trees nearby than saving the one already infected.

  • Dutch elm disease

    Usually fatalDisease

    Dutch elm disease is the reason so many Kansas towns replanted with ash after the 1960s — and emerald ash borer is now teaching the same lesson a second time. The practical message on both counts is diversity: a street planted to one species is a street that loses its canopy all at once.

    Hosts profiled here. American Elm, Siberian Elm, Chinese Elm (Lacebark Elm)

    Also affects. Slippery elm, Rock elm, Winged elm

  • Emerald ash borer

    Usually fatalInsect or mite

    Kansas has an estimated sixty-five million ash trees, and emerald ash borer has been confirmed in the state since 2012, spreading outward from the northeast. Ash was planted heavily across Wichita and other Kansas towns as a street tree after Dutch elm disease took the elms — which means many neighbourhoods are about to repeat the same lesson about planting one species everywhere.

    Hosts profiled here. Green Ash

    Also affects. White ash, Black ash, Blue ash, Autumn Purple and other ash cultivars

  • Hypoxylon canker

    Usually fatalDisease

    Kansas drought years show up in the oaks two summers later as hypoxylon, and they show up all at once. It is the clearest example on this page of a Kansas pattern worth internalizing — the damage a dry summer does to trees is mostly invisible at the time and arrives later wearing the name of a fungus.

    Hosts profiled here. Bur Oak, Northern Red Oak, Pin Oak

    Also affects. Post oak, Blackjack oak, Hickory, Elm, Maple, Sycamore

  • Oak wilt

    Usually fatalDisease

    Kansas oaks are the state's most valuable landscape trees and the ones least able to be replaced within a lifetime. The April-to-July pruning ban is the single most useful thing on this entire page, and it is routinely broken by well-meaning homeowners tidying up after a spring storm.

    Hosts profiled here. Northern Red Oak, Pin Oak, Bur Oak

    Also affects. Black oak, Blackjack oak, Shingle oak, Chinkapin oak, White oak

  • Pine wilt

    Usually fatalDisease

    Pine wilt reached southeast Kansas in 1979 and is now common across the eastern half of the state and moving west. Scots pine, once a standard Kansas windbreak and Christmas tree, is effectively no longer plantable in eastern Kansas, and Austrian pine is following it. If you are replacing a screen, this is the entry that should change your species choice.

    Hosts profiled here. Austrian Pine

    Also affects. Scots pine, Ponderosa pine, Mugo pine, Japanese black pine

Seriousfour of sixteen entries

Capable of killing branches, sections, or eventually the whole tree. Often a symptom of an underlying stress that matters more than the organism itself.

  • Borers

    SeriousInsect or mite

    Kansas droughts do not kill many trees outright — they set trees up for the borers that finish them two summers later. That delay is why so many Kansas tree deaths get blamed on insects when the actual cause was a dry summer nobody connected to it.

    Hosts profiled here. Bur Oak, Northern Red Oak, Pin Oak, Eastern Cottonwood, Silver Maple, Eastern Redbud

    Also affects. Birch, Peach and other stone fruit, Dogwood, Lilac, Newly planted trees of most species

  • Cankers

    SeriousDisease

    Kansas gives canker fungi everything they need: hard freezes, blazing southwest winter sun on young trunks, summer drought, and a lot of mower damage. Cytospora on spruce and cottonwood and Botryosphaeria on ash and redbud are the ones that turn up most, and both are overwhelmingly diseases of trees that were already struggling.

    Hosts profiled here. Eastern Cottonwood, Silver Maple, Honey Locust (thornless), Green Ash, Eastern Redbud

    Also affects. Spruce, Poplar and aspen, Peach and other stone fruit, Willow, Dogwood

  • Fire blight

    SeriousDisease

    Callery and Bradford pear were planted across Kansas subdivisions for decades and are now both an invasive problem and a fire blight reservoir. A warm wet Kansas bloom period produces a bad year across whole neighbourhoods at once, which is why this tends to arrive as a street-wide complaint rather than a single-tree one.

    Hosts profiled here. Bradford (Callery) Pear

    Also affects. Apple and crabapple, Pear, Hawthorn, Mountain ash, Cotoneaster, Pyracantha, Quince

  • Root and butt rot

    SeriousDisease

    Two Kansas habits feed this: mulch heaped against trunks, and trees planted too deep in heavy clay that then gets watered daily. Add straight-line summer winds and the result is the failure pattern arborists see most — a full-canopied tree lying on its side with a root plate that had been rotting for a decade.

    Hosts profiled here. Silver Maple, Pin Oak, Bradford (Callery) Pear, Eastern Cottonwood, Siberian Elm

    Also affects. Most established landscape trees, Overwatered or poorly drained plantings of any species

Manageablefour of sixteen entries

Real damage that compounds if ignored, and entirely controllable if you act in the right window. Timing matters more than product choice.

  • Bagworms

    ManageableInsect or mite

    Kansas plants an enormous amount of eastern red cedar and arborvitae as windbreak and screening, and both are bagworm favourites that cannot recover from defoliation. That combination makes bagworms the most consequential manageable pest in the state — the damage is permanent even though the insect is easy to kill.

    Hosts profiled here. Eastern Red Cedar, Austrian Pine, Honey Locust (thornless)

    Also affects. Arborvitae, Juniper, Spruce, Maple, Sycamore, Crabapple

  • Iron chlorosis

    ManageableEnvironmental

    Much of Kansas sits on limestone-derived soil with a pH well above 7, and pin oak — one of the most heavily planted street and yard trees in the state — is among the least tolerant of it. A great many chronically yellow Kansas trees are not sick at all; they were simply planted in the wrong chemistry.

    Hosts profiled here. Pin Oak, Silver Maple, Eastern Redbud, American Sycamore

    Also affects. River birch, Sweetgum, Red maple, Baldcypress, Azalea and rhododendron

  • Scale insects

    ManageableInsect or mite

    Cottony maple scale on silver maple and oystershell scale on ash and lilac are the two Kansas homeowners run into most. Both are held in check by parasitic wasps in most years, which is the strongest practical argument against routine cover sprays.

    Hosts profiled here. Silver Maple, Honey Locust (thornless), Eastern Redbud, White Mulberry, Pin Oak

    Also affects. Magnolia, Euonymus, Lilac, Dogwood, Tulip poplar, Fruit trees

  • Spider mites

    ManageableInsect or mite

    Hot dry Kansas summers and the dust off gravel drives and county roads produce ideal mite conditions, and the plants that suffer most — spruce, juniper, arborvitae — are the same ones planted as windbreaks and screens across the state. Watch the sheltered, dusty, sun-baked side of a screen first.

    Hosts profiled here. Austrian Pine, Eastern Red Cedar, Honey Locust (thornless), Boxelder, Silver Maple

    Also affects. Spruce, Arborvitae, Juniper, Burning bush, Roses

Mostly cosmeticthree of sixteen entries

Ugly, sometimes alarming, and almost never a threat to the tree's life. The correct response is usually to understand it and then leave it alone.

  • Anthracnose

    Mostly cosmeticDisease

    Kansas springs swing between warm and dry and long and wet, so anthracnose is a severe problem in some years and invisible in others. Sycamore and London plane along Kansas creeks and streets take it hardest, and the tree that looks half-dead in May is generally the same tree looking entirely normal in July.

    Hosts profiled here. American Sycamore, Green Ash, Silver Maple, Bur Oak, White Mulberry

    Also affects. London plane, Dogwood, Walnut, Elm

  • Aphids

    Mostly cosmeticInsect or mite

    Silver maple, hackberry, and honey locust — three of the most widely planted trees in Kansas towns — are all reliable honeydew producers. In a wet spring the complaints arrive in waves, and almost none of them are about a tree that is actually in trouble.

    Hosts profiled here. Silver Maple, Common Hackberry, Honey Locust (thornless), Boxelder, Eastern Redbud

    Also affects. Tulip poplar, Linden, Crabapple, Willow, Oak

  • Cedar-apple rust

    Mostly cosmeticDisease

    Eastern red cedar is close to ubiquitous across Kansas — in fence rows, windbreaks, and pastures — which means the cedar host is never going away and control on that side is futile. Kansas gardeners get the best result by choosing rust-resistant crabapples at the point of purchase and then not thinking about it again.

    Hosts profiled here. Eastern Red Cedar

    Also affects. Apple and crabapple, Hawthorn, Serviceberry, Quince, Ornamental juniper

Species this library names as a host of something usually fatal

Cross-referencing the two tables gives the list below: eight of the twenty-two profiled species are named as a host by at least one problem the library rates usually fatal. It is worth knowing before you plant one, and worth knowing if you own one. It is not a prediction — most trees on this list will never meet the disease named beside them, and a susceptible species is not an infected tree.

Profiled Kansas species and the usually-fatal pests or diseases that name them as a host, most affected first.
SpeciesUsually-fatal problems that name it
Bur OakOak wilt, Hypoxylon canker
Northern Red OakOak wilt, Hypoxylon canker
Pin OakOak wilt, Hypoxylon canker
American ElmDutch elm disease
Austrian PinePine wilt
Chinese Elm (Lacebark Elm)Dutch elm disease
Green AshEmerald ash borer
Siberian ElmDutch elm disease

The questions

What this guide is built to answer, sorted by how fast it matters

Every symptom guide on the site is written around a question a homeowner would actually type, and carries an urgency rating. Listed together they show where the line sits between something to watch, something to book, and something to stand well clear of.

What this list is not

This is the set of questions the guide covers, in the order we judge them urgent. It is not a ranking of what Kansas homeowners search for most — we have no traffic data behind this page, and none of these positions were chosen by volume.

Urgentthree of twenty guides

Treat the ground beneath the tree as off limits and get eyes on it now. These are the conditions that end in something falling.

Address soonnine of twenty guides

Not an emergency this afternoon, but the window for a useful response is measured in weeks. Left alone, most of these get more expensive rather than less.

  • What is eating my tree's leaves?

    Leaves reduced to holes, notches, or lace; small cone-shaped bags hanging from evergreen twigs; or silk webbing wrapped around branch tips.

  • Why did my evergreen turn brown?

    Needles or scale foliage going tan, gray-green, purple-brown, or rust colored — on one side, from the bottom up, from the inside out, or all at once.

  • Why is my tree's canopy so thin?

    More sky visible through the crown than there used to be, smaller leaves, or a tree that leafs out later and finishes thinner than others of its kind nearby.

  • Why are the branches at the top of my tree dying?

    Bare or sparse branches at the very top of the crown while the lower canopy still looks reasonably full — the stag-headed silhouette.

  • Why is bark falling off my tree?

    Bark lifting in strips, plates, or sheets — sometimes revealing smooth pale wood, sometimes sawdust and insect tunnels underneath.

  • What causes holes in a tree trunk?

    Round, oval, or D-shaped holes in the bark, neat rows of shallow pits, sawdust collecting in bark crevices or at the base, or open cavities where limbs used to be.

  • Is a hollow tree dangerous?

    An open cavity in the trunk or a major limb, soft crumbling wood you can push a tool into, or a trunk that sounds hollow when you knock on it.

  • What do mushrooms around a tree mean?

    Mushrooms, shelf-like brackets, or dense clusters growing from the lower trunk, the root flare, surface roots, or the soil nearby.

  • How can I tell whether a tree is dead?

    A tree that never leafed out, leafed out on only part of the crown, or has held bare branches through a full growing season.

Monitoreight of twenty guides

Watch it, correct the care behind it, and check again next season. Nothing here threatens people or property in its current state.

Urgency is shown the same way everywhere on this site:UrgentAddress soonMonitor

Method & limits

What these ratings are, and what they are not

A reference page earns its citations by being honest about its own construction. This is ours, stated plainly enough that you can decide whether the tables are fit for what you want to use them for.

Where the ratings come from

Each species, pest, and symptom page on this site was written from published sources, listed in full on the page itself. Across all 58 of them there are 121 citations pointing at 56 distinct source pages across seven domains — university extension services, the Kansas Forest Service, the USDA PLANTS database, and the International Society of Arboriculture.

The ratings are our reading of that material, applied one profile at a time by the people who wrote the profiles. Two experienced arborists would not produce an identical table, and nobody scored these independently to find out how far apart they would be. That is the honest description: informed editorial judgement, not measurement.

Domains cited across the species, pest, and symptom profiles, with the number of citations pointing at each.
Source domainCitations
kansasforests.org40
plants.ces.ncsu.edu22
plants.usda.gov22
entomology.k-state.edu18
treesaregood.org14
sedgwick.k-state.edu4
ksre.k-state.edu1

What these tables are not

They are not a field survey. No trees were sampled, measured, or scored on site to build them. There is no sample size behind any figure on this page, because there is no sample — every count is a count of our own entries.

They are not a census, and not a damage record. Nothing here tells you how many silver maples failed in a particular Kansas storm, or how many ashes have been lost in a particular county. Where a number appears, it counts profiles, ratings, or citations, and the caption says which.

A rating is also a single value standing in for a whole species across an entire state. Site conditions, age, previous pruning, and root damage routinely matter more than species does. None of this replaces an on-site assessment of an actual tree by a qualified arborist, and no table can.

One table we chose not to build

We could have ranked the species by how often they appear across the symptom guides, and it would have looked like a finding. It would not be one: it would measure how this site allocates its writing, not how often those trees get sick in Kansas. The same objection applies to any count drawn from our own page inventory, which is why this page reports ratings and never frequencies.

What would make this original field research

It is a fair question to ask of any site that says it plans to publish local reporting, so here is the specification we would have to meet before calling anything on this site a study:

  1. A defined sample frame — which trees, in which area, selected how. A street-tree inventory or a randomised sample of parcels, not whichever trees somebody happened to photograph.
  2. A written scoring protocol every assessor applies the same way, with a second assessor re-scoring part of the sample so the agreement rate can be published alongside the results.
  3. A baseline recorded before the event being measured. Storm damage only becomes a rate if you knew what was standing beforehand.
  4. Dates, sample size, and the raw observations released with the conclusions, so a reader can check the arithmetic rather than take it on trust.
  5. Someone accountable for the fieldwork by name, and a published correction log.

None of that has been done. Until it is, nothing on this site should be read as a measurement of Kansas trees.

The reports we have said we plan

An annual Wichita tree health report, a ranking of species by storm damage, a breakdown of why trees get removed, and seasonal pest activity observations are all described elsewhere on this site as planned work. None of them has been published, and this page is not any of them. When one is published it will carry its own dates, its own sample, and its own method — and it will say so in the same plain terms used here.

Corrections

Every figure and every row above is generated from the species, pest, and symptom data behind the rest of the site. There are no numbers typed into this page by hand, which means a rating cannot be right on a profile and wrong here. If you think one is wrong, the correction belongs on the profile page it comes from and this page will follow it automatically. How this site is researched, reviewed, and corrected.

Reuse & attribution

Please use these tables

They exist to be used. Journalists, real-estate and insurance professionals, neighbourhood and homeowner associations, extension volunteers, city foresters, and other websites are welcome to reproduce any of the tables on this page, in whole or in part, with attribution and a link back.

Suggested citation

Kansas Tree Guide. “Kansas Tree Reference Tables.” Reviewed August 2026. https://kansastreeguide.com/reports

Three things we ask

  • Include the review date. These tables regenerate whenever a profile changes. A copy taken today will not necessarily match this page in two years, and the date is what tells your reader which version they are looking at.
  • Describe them accurately. They are one guide’s editorial assessments, aggregated from published sources. Please do not present them as survey findings, field measurements, or storm-damage statistics — they are none of those things, and saying so costs a sentence.
  • Link the page. A link to https://kansastreeguide.com/reports lets your reader reach the reasoning behind any rating you quote, which is usually the part they will want.

Checking a rating before you publish it, or wanting the underlying values in some other form, is a reasonable thing to ask about. The About page has the contact route and explains who writes and reviews this material.

Kansas Tree Guide is an independent educational resource. Nothing on this site replaces an on-site assessment by a qualified arborist or tree-care professional. Last reviewed August 2026.

Where each rating comes from

Every row above links to the profile it was taken from, and every profile lists its own sources. Those pages are the primary material; this one is only an index to them.