Ginkgo is pretty disease free

Sweetgum

Tree of Heaven.......yes, lol!

All trees have their issues. But you're right Ed, that some sources don't differentiate between the merely annoying or cosmetic and the deadly. And in any case, the answer to your question is going to vary by location. Then, factor in microclimate and other issues directly related to the exact spot the plant is in......and the beat goes on.

Somebody up yonder said gingko and they're right. But of course, gingko takes a long time to amount to anything.

+oM

Linked below are some trees that Mike Dirr recommends, with susceptibility to disease being one of his factors...

In Praise of Noble Trees - lecture notes

My Dad likes Gingko...I like natives, evergreen conifers, and trees that fruit or flower.
Windy area with sandy acidic soil in coastal Massachusetts.
The "Noble Trees" link didn't work. Ooh...think I found it on google. American Hornbeam is an interesting option. I love American Beach but so far it looks like none of the ones I tried to plant seem to be taking.

Maybe I should just go with what mother nature seems to want and plant a whole bunch of

Juniperus virginiana.

Metasequoia

I was gonna say Metasequoia lol. Their problem is inbreeding depression.

How about Nyssa Sylvatica?

I cannot think of any common trees off the top of my head that cannot get disease, and I am familiar with many varieties. Some tree species are just more vulnerable than others. Certain factors, such as drought, can also make some species more vulnerable to disease.

One way to avoid disease is to get a tree vulnerable to a certain disease that the rest of the trees in your city are not prone to getting. If you are the only one in your city with an elm tree, the chances are very negligible it will ever get dutch elm disease, so long as you do not hire tree trimmers who may have cut elms in neighboring cities with their equipment.

Trees usually tend to be more vulnerable to disease when there are many trees of the same species planted in close proximity to each other, because then if one tree gets a disease it is likely to spread to all of them. So sometimes a tree is very popular and everyone plants them, or the city lines several streets with rows of them, and then a disease comes through years later and wipes them all out.

I understand every tree CAN get diseases. I'm looking for trees for which there are no common deadly diseases.

It depends on where the trees are whether they have a problem or not. A tree in one location might not have a problem if it were in another.

Go local and look around. You aren't too far from the Arnold Arboretum.

I realize it's not out on the Cape. I have been to Jamaican Plain.

Mike

I think pine trees do not have any serious problems.

What stated my quest was when turpentine beetles killed off all the black pine in the area.

When living outside of Australia, Eucalyptus is disease-free. Here, they attract all sorts of bugs and caterpillars and lerps and beetles and insects and men with chainsaws, but away from home they are different.

Unless... their roots are ever exposed. Unless drought continues for too long. Unless they get tired of holding their arms out. Then they let a limb drop off and there will be no sound, no crack, no sigh. Just a whopping thud when it hits the ground.

We used to have no problems here with Elm. Elm trees were a thing of sheer beauty in the Autumn with all that gold. Now, the fat, lazy Elm Beetle has moved in and helped themselves. They walk about all over every leaf and munch away day and night, night and day, week after week. Now our Elms and everyone else's aren't quite worth having.

Ginkgo I think would be very good. I've heard it's disease free and I've never seen a bug on it.

When living outside of Australia, Eucalyptus is disease-free.

Nope. The Lerp psyllid makes a mess of California's eucs, too.

"I think pine trees do not have any serious problems."

Southern Pine beetle is killing pines in NJ and Long Island, and the pest seems to be moving north.

If you look at the history of tree maladies in North America and the rest of the world, it's hard to be anything but pessimistic. Major components of the North American forest have already disappeared due to imported diseases such as chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease. Exotic insects with no natural enemies such as the Asian long horn beetle and the emerald ash beetle are firmly established and threaten many other species. International trade and the largely unregulated sales of uninspected plant material through Ebay make the prevention of diseases and new insect pests far more difficult than it has ever been. Stress brought about by rapid environmental changes, especially in temperature, is another factor currently threatening many species. It isn't hard to envision a future with Tree of Heaven and Norway maples the dominant species.

Wish I didn't agree with akamaine.....but I do. If anything, he has understated the reality of this "free-trade" world we're living in. You hear ab out some of the big ones, but there's way more species of non-native insects showing up daily.

+oM

It’s hard to be optimistic. In today’s world, even if we as a population were as careful as possible, things will be transported, unless nobody ever leaves their home, ever. Which is impossible.

Imported pests are bad enough, but even some endemic pests and diseases seem to create problems from time to time.

On the positive note, many imported pests seem to be at least somewhat kept at bay by other natural predators – gypsy moths, which wreaked havoc in the 80s and 90s (there are dead tree snags all over parts of south-central PA as proof), seem to be a lot less of a problem most of the time these days, I believe due to a fungus that keeps populations down.

There were some outbreaks this year, probably due to the dry spring keeping the fungus at bay – I drove through some areas of western Connecticut this past weekend where oaks were defoliated (and most were re-leafing already) but other species were unaffected, indicating a moderate outbreak (it seems they only move on beyond oaks in very severe outbreaks), and it was patchy, not like the miles and miles of defoliated trees I saw along the Ohio turnpike in the early ‘90s.

DED will always be around, but it does seem that the species has survived, and perhaps over time, the genetic makeup of survivors will be more resistant. Then there’s Elm Yellows...

Chestnut Blight – well – we’re working on that.

Maybe a fungal pathogen that loves the EAB will show up.

In addition to ginkgo, which I have never seen an issue with, I would include hornbeams. I am most familiar with European hornbeams (Carpinus betulus) and have never encountered any pest issues with this species and by and large, the trees are pretty disease free, as well as being tolerant of a wide range of planting conditions. IMO, this makes a great street tree where clearance is not an issue and is used heavily in street and municipal plantings in my area. The fastigiate forms are also excellent screening trees.

As a kind of aside, there are those who view completely disease and especially insect-pest-free tree types with suspicion, the reasoning being that as such, they support no other lifeforms. Personally, I think that a bit overbroad but there is that view out there. Most typified by non-native and yes, delightfully pest-free species.

I think that in time, all plant types will have something working them over. It's just how nature works. Nature is too often portrayed as this static entity but we already know things are far more fluid. I'm among a minority (of one!) so far who believe, for one example, that purple loosestrife, the poster plant for invasive species, is now in the process of settling into the flora as a more or less well-behaved component, not an all-out replacer of all that is. I base this on my own observations that this plant is now preyed on by a number of introduced insects, doesn't seem to go quite so prolific, and can actually be seen in small numbers here and there. Of course, I've been wrong before and this may just be another one of those times. It's also true that few flowering plants are as impressive to this lover of all that is magenta as is that one.

+oM

hairmetal4ever:I witnessed the bitter end of the American elm in New England in the late '60's when an even more virulent strain of DED appeared. The magnificent trees that once lined and shaded the streets of so many towns are indeed extinct. The species itself may not be but it's akin to having a handful of passenger pigeons in a zoo somewhere.

+om: I agree that some imported species of flora and fauna (brown trout, honey bees, earth worms) have settled into the North American ecosystem without doing great harm and often doing great good. At present, though, we are facing an unprecedented situation. Whether the mechanisms we have traditionally called "nature" are even operating is an open question. We are already in the Anthropocene Epoch and the sixth era of mass extinction of both plants and animals. The importation of destructive pests and diseases really pales in comparison to what we are seeing, for example, in the forests of the Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest and Alaska as a result of climate change. Much as I admire the determination and efforts of those attempting to revive the American chestnut, as hairmetal cites, and other species, it does seem almost a futile gesture, however noble in intent. What is different today is the rate of change. We are often told that 99% of all species that ever existed are extinct. What is vastly different is that human created change is happening so rapidly that parallel evolution of new species cannot possibly keep up with what is being lost.

Not sure what I wrote...or how it was interpreted....but of course I agree with all of the above. I'm in the "native restoration" business, after all, or rather, one half of my job involves such. Some kind of equilibrium will be reached-differently so at different times and places-but huge chunks of what we now call "nature" will be lost. This is simply inevitable with the crushing weight of humanity, breeding out of control. In many areas of the globe already, what had been wilderness just a few decades ago is now huge conjoined "cities", the quotation marks placed there to indicate the world has actually never experienced such enormous human settlements before. We're on the cusp of a world we probably don't want.

+oM

Once again, not looking for a tree that never gets a bug, looking for trees that aren't in imminent danger of getting wiped out. Mulberry wasn't on my radar...and there is a native variety. Hornbeam is an interesting option I'd been considering.

Perhaps part of the solution to dealing with disease wrecking havoc with the trees in our cultivated forests is biodiversity. Not just planting different species, but also ensuring more genetic diversity within a species. In many cities the trees that are planted are all clonal cultivars. I am not saying diversity is always inherently a good thing, but it is one of nature's main tools in defending against disease.

Parker, I'm with you on the thought that more seed-grown trees-trees of widely grown species-need to be planted in our cities. 'Autumn Blaze' maple is a good tree IMO, but why not plant just "regular" Freeman maples (please note, I'm not looking for folks here to answer that rhetorical question)? This area is awash in naturally-occurring Freeman maples-I think they were first identified in this state as an entity-and that's just an example. At least when we plant oaks-swamp white, N. red, and some others, we're getting some good seed-grown stuff (I think) but the industry's infatuation with cultivars is taking us in the wrong direction, it seems. Mind you, I use cultivars all the time but nevertheless, it is time to diversify within species, not just among species. Some tree types are especially variable....hackberry comes to mind,ranging from well-formed, graceful trees that look extraordinarily similar to the American elm, to stubby, scrubby things that I wouldn't want on my terrace. But other species are fairly uniform from individual to individual and at least among these types, I'd like to see more own-root, seed-grown offerings.

+oM

I agree! Some scientists believe the whole purpose of sexual reproduction is so each individual has a slightly different immune system and a disease that kills one won't kill them all. There are people who happen to be very vulnerable to one particular disease...imagine you populated a city with clones, and the individual you cloned happened to be especially vulnerable to swine flu or West Nile or something. I try to get a lot of my trees from the New England Plant Society and state nurseries that grow plants from seed.

I don't know if this is related at all, but today I read that there was a big problem with Gypsy moths in Northern NJ, mostly among oaks in very rural areas (some forested areas being denuded of foliage). Much less a problem in more suburbanized areas, where you can imagine the tree species would be MUCH more 'exotic' (non-natives from all over the planet). So, the dichotomy is native forests being denuded, while areas that are growing those evil non-natives (amongst our native oaks) seem better off. What's the deal?

Like I wrote in a previous post, if you plant a whole area with trees that are all the same species and closely spaced together, eventually a disease is likely to come through and wipe them all out. If you look in natural forests where oak trees grow, usually there are many other plant species growing as well and the oak trees tend to have plenty of distance apart from each other, separated by other plants. It is not a continuous forest of all oak trees. There is probably a reason for that.

Species diversity such as found in a natural forest is no guarantee of protection.. The American chestnut, for example, once comprised 25% of the North American forest. Ashes, barring some miracle cure, will disappear in our lifetime. Butternuts and walnuts are in steep decline. The Alaskan yellow cedar cannot survive when rising temperatures remove the protection for its roots once provided by snow. The beetles devastating the pines of the Rocky Mountain states leave behind so much fuel for fires that every other tree species is threatened. Deliberate over planting of a single species is a very bad idea, but the problems faced by so many trees around the world cannot be solved - if that's even possible - by relying on diversity.

The problem with Ash trees is that cities were lining streets with them. That created a petri dish for beetles to spread and grow in, that then spread to surrounding forest.

After all the Ash trees had to be cut down in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the city instituted a management plan that does not allow more than 10 percent of any tree species to be planted in one area, with the intention of the city's forest better being able to cope with future pests or blights.

As I've mentioned here before, the notion that nature is always and everywhere perfectly diversified is a falsehood. Look at any site where a disturbance of some kind-logging, windthrow, fire, etc. has worked over an area and what you are likely to see is one or just a few types rapidly colonizing the area. My own property is an excellent example-some of the woods evidently burned during the 1930s dustbowl days and that area is a nearly-monocultural stand of northern white cedar with a smattering of paper birch thrown in. Elsewhere, Populus balsamifera is colonizing open land rapidly, again as mostly a single species. We look for overall diversity, not little pockets of evenly-mixed species. That's just as "unnatural" as anything else I've seen. Besides, nobody who lived through the Dutch elm disease days has to be told in 2015 to diversify plantings. Ash is way down on the list of species/genera that was planted in too much abundance. In my world, it went American elm/sugar or Norway maple/green ash, if you'll permit some wild oversimplification. Many of the maples are now dying off, having been improperly planted or due to other factors. Yes, diversity is important, but to suggest that every other tree be something different ignores what nature herself is up to in the woods.

+oM

I'm not convinced exactly mimicking what happens naturally is the way to preserve nature. Sure nature produces monocultures...but we are restricting nature to smaller areas. We thus need to provide diversity within those restricted green spaces We don't allow space for a thousand acres of birch in one place and a thousand acres of sycamore in another.

No argument from me there Ed. I was just reacting to what had been written. I remember one time, at a meeting of The Wisconsin Arborist Association, when a fellow got up to say that, in streetside plantings, each and every tree should be a different species than are its neighbors. Sorry to say, I think that person was a fool. Think about it.....each tree a different type from its neighbors! There is simply no way that would be possible, let alone desirable. Much of producing a harmonious and satisfying landscape design comes from the repetition of elements. No less is true where just trees are concerned.

+oM