ash

ash wood

Tree species: ash

Color: white to cream, by incidence of light the color becomes slightly yellowish

Hardness: hard

Characteristics: Heartwood tree with irregular false heartwood formation. May develop a brown heart and an olive heart, usually only after the age of 40...; it is ring-porous (like oak and elm) and therefore has a coarser appearance.

Psychological equivalent: ... the golden mean
The ash tree is the link between the extremes. It is the right tree for all people who find the Beech too strong and the Oak too oppressive or straightforward, because it puts itself in an imaginative, flexible and agile scene. 
Ash conveys the development of strong willpower, which is especially related to its tough wood. Especially ash floors or furniture help people to train and strengthen their willpower through meditation and become as tough as ash wood.
The ash tree was also considered a symbol of the power of water. Likewise, the ash tree was supposed to banish the destructive power of water. Fishermen believed in this power of ash. Fishermen made individual parts of their boats from ash wood to protect them from capsizing.
The ash tree plays an important role in Germanic mythology. There it represents the all-embracing world tree Yggdrasil. This tree connects with its three roots the nine different worlds, which are divided into three levels.
In medicine, ash leaves help against rheumatism and gout as a tea made from ash leaves. Ash bark is also a well-tried remedy. For a long time it was considered an antipyretic equivalent to cinchona bark.

Properties: heavy, hard and elastic/pliable.

Suitability/Use: Interior decoration, furniture making, parquet flooring, stairs (steps and stringers), sports equipment, tool styles, wainwrighting, vehicle-wagon-machine building, sleigh cams, ski cores, bow making, ladder rungs, lathe work, spindles of fruit-u.wine presses, aircraft construction, boat building.
Value/availability: relatively cheap (standard dimensions), because sufficiently well available

Cutting time (pruning/tree care): in summer from about May to August

Sealing behavior: not very good

Pruning and wound closure: according to current guideline ZTV Baumpflege, before knot ring up to (as far as possible) < 10 cm diameter, no wound closure (as ineffective).

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Sources of the information:

• My own experience/knowledge and documents from my wood economics studies at the Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences.
• Native timber (loose-leaf collection) Authors D. Grosser and W. Teetz. CMA, Bonn-publisher -Holzabsatzfonds-Bonn 1998
• Book Volker Drolshagen/Karin Hoffmann: The Language of Trees (1997)
• Website https://www.everyday-feng-shui.de