Ash = Saarni in finnish, bit rare here, but should be few in garden or park, also at southern part of country they may grow as wild, pine would be of course a lot easier to find, I think over there those should be growing rather freely.
Birch is hard material too, it is rather white, but it is not difficult to tone it to darker colour, it is used in stairs and floors etc. any place that need to whitstand some use. Pine is then lot softer wood, it is easy to make dents and scratches to it, so it is often used for things that need to look nice, but don't need to whitstand heavy use. However often our wood houses are made from pine as birch has nasty habit of bending when it dries.
Ash is again hard wood, bit harder than Birch, about 1/6th harder, so it is very good for making items for usage, would be interesting to make some bows out from it, I have made bows (longbows of european style) from Alder and Willow as those have been proper size and shape, also I have one in making from Pine, but it probably will not be too good, Pine is not very good for bending, Juniper would be very good for that, but Juniper is protected by law, it is illegal to cut it down.
I was thinking that Ash, might do some fine arrows, for those lathe is rather good tool, quite difficult to make those as they need to be so thin and long (around 2 feet), anyway Ash as hard material would be more rigid, like arrow made from alloy and it would fly better than those of mine that wobble quite badly when flying.
