Wednesday, February 6, 2002
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Wednesday, February 6, 2002 |
| You can plant
history in your back yard
By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
Johnny Appleseed's story is but one of many tantalizing accounts of our horticultural heritage. American Forests' Web page lists several dozen and characterizes each as relevant to certain national events or historic figures. You can grow a maple tree genetically identical to the Alex Haley Silver Maple that stands in front of the writer's boyhood home. The American Revolution comes to the modern age in saplings generated from the Lafayette Sycamore on the Brandywine Battlefield Park in Chadds Ford, Pa. That tree was already 168 years old when it sheltered troops in its shade. The Marquis de Lafayette lay against its bark as his wounded leg was being dressed. The Nathan Hale Northern Red Oak shades the patriot's boyhood home in Coventry, Conn. Your seedling is acorn-grown. Civil War survivors include several trees at Appomattox Courthouse and in Gettysburg. En route to the cemetery where he gave his immortal speech, Abraham Lincoln would have passed under the shade of three American red oaks on Baltimore Street. They come to you today, sprouted from handpicked seeds. Seedlings from acorns may grow up to be as big as their parent, the Hanging Live Oak in Goliad, Texas. True to its name, this massive tree was the host of many a necktie party. You can plant a Southern magnolia seedling from the tree that grows by the Great House at the plantation where Robert E. Lee was born. Another Southern icon is remembered in the pin oak along the driveway of Elvis Presley's Graceland Mansion, as well as in a weeping willow near the front gate. Yes, for around $35, you can have your very own certified Presley Pin Oak. In a broader view of history, there are the Charles Lindbergh White Oak at the flier's Little Falls, Minn., childhood home; the Frank Lloyd Wright Ginkgo in Oak Park, Ill., where the architect lived for 20 years; the Thomas Edison Oleander at the inventor's winter home in Fort Myers, Fla.; the Wyatt Earp Black Walnut, which was already a large tree shading Earp's Monmouth, Ill., birthplace when he was born in 1848. Presidential trees include not only those at birthplaces and childhood homes, but also those planted by our heads of state. Of trees planted on the White House grounds, one that got national concern in modern times is the Andrew Jackson Southern Magnolia. Planted by the president in 1832 in memory of his wife, Rachel, who died before he took office, the tree was nearly destroyed 165 years later when a small airplane crashed into it. And the trees that may require the most unusual care are two tulip trees planted in 1785 by George Washington at Mount Vernon, his home on the Potomac River. The Historic Trees Web site says these majestic trees well over 80 to 100 feet tall now can no longer be naturally pollinated by bees, which can fly only about 40 or 50 feet high. "Beginning in 1989, we began manually pollinating the individual flowers, one by one, relying on a lift bucket and Q-Tips," says Historic Trees. And to think, you can order the resulting seedlings for your own Mount Vernon, and plant trees derived from the cooperative efforts of the first president and the National Arboretum. You can learn more at www.historictrees.org.
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