Rock Island County, IL Invasive Plant Rules: Tree-of-Heaven Removal (2026)

597 lists fourteen species barred from satisfying the zoning code's landscaping and screening requirements, opening with Ailanthus, or tree of heaven, and continuing through box elder, European mountain ash, European white birch, poplar, Siberian elm, silver maple, willow, cottonwood, all fruit-bearing trees such as crab apple, Bradford pear, purple-leaf plum, mulberry, and Russian olive, sweet gum, hawthorne, pin oak, and gingko. The code's stated reason is that these are weak-wooded trees and generally undesirable trees for urban conditions. 599, which sets buffer widths and plant counts, canopy trees, understory trees, shrubs, and evergreens, based on how a subject parcel's zoning district borders an adjacent one.

598 requires that whatever landscaping is installed be maintained in good condition, free of refuse and debris, at the owner's expense. 597 is a zoning list rather than a nuisance or removal statute, it does not require anyone to cut down an existing tree of heaven already on their land; it only blocks the species from counting toward a new development's required plantings.