Trees, Shrubs and Conifers: Is this Smoketree big?, 0 by StarhillForest

StarhillForest wrote:
I had admired it even during my college days in the 60s, seen from the window of one of my classes in the Hort Building at Purdue. Then a few years ago, I read in an alumni newsletter that the university, which owned the city block including the smoketree house, planned to drop a new "visual and performing arts" building on top of it. I wrote to them and asked how they planned to work around the national chamipon tree -- the response was, "what tree?"

After a couple of exchanges, I realized that the architects knew nothing about trees and had no desire to revise their plans at that point. I contacted the campus arborist, who was dismayed over the situation and fed me info but was not in a position to challenge his superiors about it.

So I went globally postal. E-mails started flying around among retired professors I had known at Purdue, various tree societies, and arborists worldwide. Soon Purdue began hearing from tree people across the country and from my tree friends throughout Europe, China, South America, etc. Had I been a member of DG back then, you guys would have been dragged into the fray as well.

Result: Purdue bit the bullet and did the right thing. They hired one of those big-tree-moving companies to relocate the tree (actually, the entire yard in which it was growing!) to another place on the south side of the campus. It was the first time anyone had moved a national champion tree, and thus far (six years later) it's still doing OK in its new home, This despite having been tipped over by a storm shortly after the transplant, then righted again with heavy equipment and guyed with aircraft cable!

I hope others will be inspired and encouraged to rally similarly for such causes. If we don't, who will? Here is the tree last fall -- that's me at left for scale. The rootball that was transplanted was about the size of the mulched area and roughly 6 feet deep.

Guy S.