Oakley TreeKeepers Honor Treasured Tree at WNCAP
We're so grateful to WNCAP for working with the Oakley TreeKeepers to honor this 210-year-old White Oak.
There's no better way to celebrate Oaktober than by honoring a 210-year-old oak!
This past Saturday our dedicated Treasured Tree committee gathered with the Oakley TreeKeepers and community members from the Oakley neighborhood to honor a 210-year-old White Oak thriving at the site of The Western North Carolina AIDS Project (WNCAP).
Oakley was founded in 1900, but many of the backyard trees were established well before that.
Jane Laping, one of the Oakley TreeKeepers, said the group formed after discovering that several neighbors had short-sighted reasons for cutting down their oldest and largest trees.
"There was a few months where we were seeing 1-2 trees cut down almost each week—perfectly healthy trees," Jane said, adding that when she asked, the homeowners reported reasons like: They didn't want to rake leaves, that the trees attracted insects and wildlife, and they disliked the sound of acorns dropping on the roof.
“Trees provide so many benefits, and the older they are, the more they do for us. We realized that people just didn’t know the value of these trees,” Jane said.
WNCAP Board Member Sarah Tennison accepts the Treasured Tree certificate from Susan Sertain, an AGW Treasured Tree Committee member.
To educate their neighbors, the Oakley TreeKeepers also organized a neighborhood tree stroll with Chardin Detrich of Smart Feller Tree Works as part of the event. Chardin was able to point out some of the oldest trees in the neighborhood, as well as to teach residents about the value of these trees.
“Oakley was named for the trees. They're why people moved here,” Jane said, adding that the Oakley group is dedicated to “protecting the trees we can and restoring the trees we can’t.”
If you live in or near Oakley, and would like to get involved in local efforts to protect and restore the tree canopy, you can find out more here.
We so appreciate this collaboration between two of our tree guardian volunteer groups!
We also love to support the creative ways our neighbors find to protect and restore our tree canopy. However, we can't offer tree education and community resources without your help.
Your gift today will support upcoming TreeKeeper trainings and allow us to assist in the formation of more neighborhood tree groups.
When you support this vital work, you'll empower neighborhood tree guardians like Jane to spread the word about the importance of our urban trees.
