<b>Tree Care Guide:</b> Relocation & Preservation

When developers Castle & Cooke set out to establish a green development within Oakland Park, nestled between the towns of Oakland and Winter Garden, Fla., one of their primary goals was preserving the Park’s natural tree canopy. This was no small undertaking. More than 50 large specimen trees were selected to be relocated or preserved in order to accomplish this goal.

Oakland Park has been certified as a green community by the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC) and all of the homes being built there will be required by deed restriction to be certified “green” by the FGBC, as well. The 10-year building project will ultimately result in a community of more than 750 homes. John Rinehart, vice president of Castle & Cooke, says preservation of the canopy was a top priority because of the effort to create a green and sustainable development.

“That included preserving natural resources to the extent possible,” Rinehart says. “As we developed plans for this project, we focused on avoiding what trees we could, and where it wasn’t practical to avoid them, we marked them for relocation.”

A team of ValleyCrest arborists and landscape architects from Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin were responsible for identifying the trees for preservation and relocation. “From a green standpoint, I think it shows a big commitment on Castle & Cooke’s part to take the time to hire consultants and do all the reconnaissance work,” says Donald G. Wishart, principal, Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin. “Identifying all the trees and relocating them or working around them rather than just bulldozing definitely shows commitment to the sustainability cause and it’s the kind of developer we as a company like to be associated with.”

The biggest task in examining the trees, one-by-one, was determining which were the best candidates for relocation and which would help develop character by staying in place. That required surveying the trees in terms of size and condition, as well as their aesthetic appeal. Trees marked for relocation, and those chosen to remain, were hand-picked by the teams involved, after approximately two weeks of site survey.

Those chosen to remain greatly enhanced the landscape. “The trees help create an authentic timelessness for the community and you get that impact from day one rather than starting from scratch with all brand new trees,” says Wishart. “They provide shade on hot days and give off a lot of character. That goes a long way in ‘place making’ for the family-oriented community that Castle & Cooke wanted to create.” 

The Oakland Park canopy was composed exclusively of oak trees. Wishart says this is a more “bullet-proof tree,” so they were fairly well-suited for surviving relocation. And they have other benefits, as well.

“In Florida, live oak trees have a really long life,” Wishart continues. “And they have a beautiful, umbrella-like canopy. From a park setting, they are the perfect tree because the broad spreading canopy allows for play areas and outdoor dining and picnic areas under the shade.”

There were some particularly special trees in the bunch. One tree Castle & Cooke is very proud of, which they kept on site, was a majestic live oak tree estimated to be nearly 300 years old. Also notable, of the trees that were relocated, was the largest tree in the group. It was 60 feet tall, two feet in diameter, and weighed more than 50 tons. This tree required a 300-ton crane to lift and move it to its new home, a quarter-mile from where it sprouted.

In combination with moving and preserving the trees, from a landscape design and installation standpoint, Castle & Cooke also focused on native and/or drought-tolerant plants. “The landscape is not what you might typically see in a community because we were interested in doing more than just ornamental plantings,” Rinehart says. “We also restored some of the nearby shoreline, stabilizing the ground. Once we had it under control we planted literally thousands of native plants that are doing remarkably well today.”

In 2008, the tree relocation and preservation project was awarded Florida’s “Best Project” at the annual Trees Florida conference. The conference, co-sponsored by the Florida Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, the Florida Urban Forestry Council, the Florida Division of Forestry and the University of Florida Extension Service, is an opportunity for arborists, landscape architects and tree suppliers to hear about the latest trends and trade current research.

At press time only one tree from the project had been lost, and the teams involved in the relocation are confident about the future of the rest. ValleyCrest monitors the trees weekly and will continue to do so until the survival of the trees is assured. Though it’s been a multi-year undertaking, Rinehart says that Castle & Cooke has no doubt that their time and effort spent on these trees has been worth it. “The value of some of our trees at Oakland Park is priceless,” he says. “There is simply no amount of money you could spend to acquire trees like these.” 
 

Right: The trees selected to remain on the property were chosen based on the character they added to the land. Wishart said they created an “authentic timelessness” for the community – something that couldn’t be achieved by starting out with brand new plantings. Left: This majestic live oak tree is estimated to be nearly 300 years old, but it wasn’t the biggest one relocated. That one was 60 feet tall and weighed more than 50 tons.

The author is a freelance writer based in Royersford, Pa.