It sounds like it needs more time to get established.
I'm not sure what you mean by "sprout mature leaves".
Are you saying the tree hasn't leafed out or that the leaves haven't matured?
General rule of thumb (small trees like yours establish faster)
year 1: SLEEP
year 2: CREEP
year 3: LEAP

Regarding the stuff the lawn service sprayed, if they sprayed in march and april and the tree is now dead or foliage has died or something like that then I'd suspect something there. Otherwise it sounds like you need to wait a little longer and that blue ash will take off like a weed.

Patience.

Dan

Hi. There are leaves there. But they just started emerging. We've been in the low to mid nineties for the past few days and after about Jun 20th it will stay above 90 til the end of August. I know y'all are further North, but down here it seems almost too late for a tree to be working on it's first leaves still. I'm surprised that the leaves aren't fully mature. Again the flowers are still green and the leaves are very tiny. But not tiny in a sick way...tiny in an unfurling way. I hope this makes sense. I'll take pics the next time I'm out at the parents place.

Sometimes that happens with mail order trees that are forced to stay dormant. I'm assuming you bought these mail order.
Anyhoo, I've personally seen blue ash growing like a weed in 90 degree temps in compacted clay soil in your region. So you needn't worry about that. The tree needs to get established which they normally do pretty darn easily. Ask anyone who's put a potted blue ash on top of the ground for a month or two. They root right through the doggone container.

Wonderful advice everyone! Thanks for easing my concerns. I'll still post a pick soon to update y'all!

Here are some pics...

It's grown an inch since April 1st :(

{{gwi:366684}}

{{gwi:366685}}

well the good news is you got it from FF so if it doesn't snap out of it, you can ask them for a replacement.

It's so weird to me to see someone actually planting ash!!! Up here I don't even think you can buy them any more because of the emerald ash borer. The City of Cleveland just ripped out a ton of ashes, either pre-emptively or to quarantine.

I've always found the blue ash interesting and for some reason the borer doesn't really come this far south...at least not yet. I guess because ash isn't all that common in the forest and we get so darn hot here too.

Oh well, just wanted to update you guys to say that it only took a few days around 99 degrees for the tree to start growing quicker. Crisis averted!

So here we are almost 2 and a half years since I planted the Blue Ash, and it's doing amazingly well! This is it's 3rd spring and it has grown probably a good 8 inches! The growth is so lush too. The first year it barely did anything, the second year it maybe grew 3", and this year it looks great!

The first two years I was seeing a lot of damage to the leaves, and I don't see any sign of that this year. I'll post pics soon!

The tree is almost 6 feet tall now!

{{gwi:366686}}

This post was edited by jqpublic on Mon, May 13, 13 at 1:03

Hopefully the Emerald Ash Borer doesn't make it to where you live. We have had Ash trees in our Toronto, Canada neighborhood ravaged by this destructive bug! Streets of Ash trees that almost covered the road have been cut down. Leaving a barren street with a new development like feel...

Here is a before picture - you can see that the trees were quite sick. This was taken in midsummer.

Here is an after picture taken last month - How devastating!

IMO, the lesson of this story is to plant more than one specie of tree per street. Mix it up! Another lesson would be not to rely on the city tree as the only tree in your front yard. Plant another tree or two or three in your front yard. Then it wouldn't look so barren when a devastation like this occurs. ( Don't know how to rotate the picture).

This post was edited by bgbtoronto on Mon, May 13, 13 at 22:46

Thanks everyone for the heads up! I am aware of EAB, but thought I may test my luck with ashes, as they aren't as common here as other trees. I'd say 85% of the trees here are pines, oaks, maples, tulip poplars, hickories, and sweet gums. The other 10% are everything else, including ash.

I planted one white ash in my backyard and one blue ash in my back yard. In 2 years the white ash has gone from 2' to 10'. That thing grows like crazy! The blue ash has been slower, only recently putting on growth in feet rather than inches....6' in 5 years.

Also, the natural range of EAB in Asia seems to be in more northern climes, so I'm holding out hope that it won't come this far south due to the comparable rarity of ash trees down here. I would understand if it EAB made it into the NC mountains though, as they average zone 5-6ish weather out there.