Presbyterian Burr Oaks
I was already talking myself out of it.
I loved the idea of this project, but that's all it was…
An idea.
I thought it might be fun to visit the trees in a book I've had on my shelves for years called The Famous Trees of Texas, which was published in 1970, the year I was born. With my 50th birthday approaching, it seemed like a good time to see what these old trees could tell me. In my journal, I wrote more than once that it was something I would love to do.
But I wasn’t doing it.
Inertia and the fear of looking stupid inflicted a strong downward pull. I realized that keeping the idea something of a secret, I never had to begin. Casually, I began mentioning it to friends.
To make it a reality, I had to take action, but I was already looking for a way out of the effort. It was easier to seek inspiration, reading and listening to podcast interviews with authors and other thinkers. One excellent podcast about self publishing literally shouted at me to stop thinking about writing and stop talking about writing and actually write.
A quote I only partially remembered came to mind…
Inspiration is for amateurs.
I wasn’t sure who said it so I looked it up.
“Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work.
If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightening to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.
And the belief that things will grow out of the activity itself and that you will — through work — bump into other possibilities and kick open other doors that you would never have dreamt of if you were just sitting around looking for a great ‘art idea.’”
Part of my hesitation, my fear, was this nagging question:
What if I suck?
This quote gave me an answer. You probably do suck, amateur. Now stop worrying about that and get to work.
Staring at the map, I saw that visiting the nearest of the famous trees involved driving to Ft. Worth. Perhaps due to the weight of getting started, this felt completely daunting. Scrounging for something easier, I wasted some time online, but then remembered some oaks I had heard about at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. They were saved from construction destruction by an arborist who refused to cut them down. Steve Houser started Arborilogical Services in the mid nineties, around the same time as my boss began his company. Their businesses have collaborated for most of the last two decades.
Our garden manager staff met their team and toured their facility in Wylie, Texas, which is surrounded by water wise gardens full of native perennials and specially chosen trees. The carefully designed building is made with sustainable materials and filled with trophies won in tree climbing contests and mementoes, like the thick slices of tree trunks known as "cookies.”
Steve recounted to us the story of the Presbyterian oaks. He lost his biggest client when he decided against their request to clear the two old burr oaks (Quercus macrocarpa) to make space for a new building.
In protest, he formed the Dallas Historic Tree Coalition (now the Texas Historic Tree Coalition) and took out a two page ad in the Dallas Morning News, noting the irreplaceable benefits of urban forests and explaining the threatened plight of these old trees. His efforts resulted in a redesign which kept a place for the sibling oaks between the new buildings.
To hunt down these trees would be a significantly less challenging excursion. My friend, who works for another arborist company texted me: “Wanna go to the Arboretum?” The idea of a companion bolstered me. “I want you to help me find some trees,” I texted back.
We circled back from the main road behind the first row of buildings and quickly spotted them on the hospital campus. Parking and walking down a driveway near the dumpsters, we observed a huge cooling unit pouring water all along the wall at the top edge of the structure. It felt like maybe we weren't supposed to be wandering around behind the scenes. One friendly, but curious employee eyeballed us, like: what are y’all doing here? He asked if we were taking a tour. Yep.
The feeling of trespassing faded as we neared the patch of earth at the base of the oaks. Walking underneath the canopy near the large trunks, I could immediately feel their energy. This small space between buildings seemed to have a bit more oxygen. The dappled shade provided by their giant leaves almost made the sweaty September day seem cooler.
Alive and well, but tightly wedged between two structures, we noted points where the trees could use strategic pruning to keep from scraping against the buildings. Many good sized lower branches had already been hacked off in favor of those extending upward to the sky. It's interesting to consider the relationship between trees grown closely to each other and to notice the way their branches interact.
The ground was on an incline and at the top of the slope was a sidewalk leading to a cement staircase where we climbed a bit closer to the leaf canopy. Staffers came in and out of the doorway at the top of the stairs, taking little notice of these living things that were saved from the ax.
He mentioned that they might benefit from applications of a growth regulator: Cambistat to inhibit the elongation toward light. That seemed to my organic leaning mind, a bit unnatural, but how much of the stewardship of our urban environment is natural? Though they were saved, they are now at the mercy of more stressful conditions and they no doubt endured hardships during construction.
How much longer will they survive like this?
Was it worth saving them if their lifespan is shortened as a result?
These were the questions we pondered afterward over a drink.
