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Picture and Story of the Old Dickory Oak Tree |
Here is the picture of the of the Old Dickory Oak tree in Harahan, Louisiana with Coleen Perilloux Landry standing next to it. Below you can read a very interesting article.
LIVING LANDMARKS
By: Sheila Grissett, May 16, 2003
THE TIMES PICAYUNE
The rescues of a grand southern magnolia in Jefferson and a towering live oak in Harahan were orchestrated by a growing army of activists who are determined to provide safe arbor for a living legacy.Paris and Buzzy Langford didn't need a second house, but they still spent $30,000 buying the small one next door for the sole purpose of preserving the spectular Southern magnolia that dwarfed it. The East Jefferson couple said it was the only way to protect the tree from potential buyers whose redevelopment plans didn't include an ethereal-looking magnolia that covered two-thirds of the lot with its bulk and towered another 30 plus feet above it. "I love that tree...It was up for grabs for seven long months, seven months of hell for me. Finally, they took our offer."
Just a year later, Langford found herself riveted by news reports that a centuries-old live oak only a few miles away was being swiftly spared death-by development after tree activist Coleen Perilloux Landry blew the whistle on construction plans that would have killed it. Civic, service and preservation groups throughout the metropolitan area lined up behind the tree known as Old Dickory; Gov. Mike Foster and Jefferson Parish President Tim Coulon quickly blessed the effort to save it. Within weeks, offending road, drainage and subdivision projects were being reconfigured, a plan was drawn transferring Old Dickory from private ownership to public trust, and --lest there be any doubt-- the ability of non-profit groups to step in and help craft political solutions to civic concerns was cemented. "These groups have made 'trees' a buzzword statewide. They are the stimuli that have forced lots of communities to address tree protection issues on a legitimate basis, says Steve Shurtz, president of the La. Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. "They tend to be female, well-educated, generally well-connected and most relentless," he said. "These women go into meetings and don't leave until they get what they came for."
These aren't your grandmother's tree ladies. In fact, the women successfully leading green campaigns have come to be known in some circles as the "Magnolia Mafia" said Shurtz.
It is that sentiment also driving Old Dickory's benefactor. Landry chairs the multi-state Live Oak Society; the centenarian she helped save near the Elmwood-Harahan line is one of the largest and oldest of the society's 4,400 plus registered members. "I don't think most people realized before Old Dickory that you can actually fight the powers that be for a single tree, and you can win, " says Landry, who estimates that Old Dickory has lived at least 600 years just east of Hickory Avenue in a strip of woods soon slated for subdivision redevelopment.
The giant tree, with a girth of more than 25 feet and a crown spread five times that, will be preserved in a small fenced plot of woods sandwiched between the new homes and roadway to come.
Landry has been swamped with phone calls and e-mails since Old Dickory went public in January. She already registered another 133 trees and is now starting the tedious registration of almost 1,000 historical oaks on LSU's campus in Baton Rouge.
"People who read about Old Dickory now see registration as a degree of protection for the trees they love, and it is," she says. "Lots of state and communities have regulations that make it more difficult to destroy a registered live oak."
"But, Old Dickory has beefed up more than the society's register. As a result of the near mis - it was a state Department of Transportation and Development road project that would have helpedkill the tree - DOTD officials have put a new emphasis on the need to protect extraordinary trees and has started a database that puts them on a statewide land resources map. "Everyone here is embarrassed that the situation got as far as it did," said DOTD landscape architect Herb Piller, who joined the agency just as it learned that half of Old Dickory's massive root system and canopy stand in the path of a planned road. "It shouldn't have happened because DOTD had a policy in place at the time to protect significant trees whenever possible and that surely includes registered live oaks." Piller said. "But since Old Dickory, we've really made sure all our people are clear on it".
In recent weeks, Piller loaded a version of Landry's live oak registry into an internal computer system that DOTD personnel are already using to check for big trees before construction plans are committed to paper. It's just the beginning of a slow, tree-by-tree process, and we can't save every one of them," Piller said. "But we are making progress."
Tom Campbell, state forester in the New Orleans area, thinks the overwhelming response to Old Dickory was a sort of giant public foot stomp that said , "Stop! Don't touch that tree." "This whole new level of awareness that that been building for years was gaining momentum and really starting to roll when Old Dickory hit and struck a nerve," Campbell says. "Our job is to keep it rolling."
Last Updated: Monday, 02-Jun-2003 05:22:04 GMT
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