The Collier Lawn at the University of Oregon. A large Sitka spruce (right) creates shade for pedestrians along 13th Ave and University St. (Photo by University of Oregon)
Eugene, Ore.
By Johnny Media
Green is a common color on the University of Oregon campus. From the green adorn on The Duck’s shirt and hat to the countless signs and posters in and around the many buildings on the 295-acre campus, green is a staple amongst the scenery.
We’re so bombarded with the color green that we often look past the most common source of the color around our campus—The trees that make up the majority of our landscape.
Becket DeChant is the University of Oregon’s full-time arborist. DeChant has been doing this for over 20 years. For the last six years, he’s been here, overseeing the trees around campus.
The University of Oregon is a living arboretum. Throughout the sprawling campus, you’ll find over 4,000 trees and an astounding 500 or more species. Mixed amongst those thousands of trees is one that stood for nearly 120 years, though records from that far back are not as robust as modern standards.
On the corner of 13th Ave and University St. stood an over 110-foot Sitka spruce—A monolith of towering green, right in the Heart of Campus. The lawn the tree stood in belongs to the Collier House. Named for an earlier professor and his wife. It’s Mrs. Collier who’s had the more lasting impact on the campus we all know today.
Mrs. Collier was an avid botanist. As one of the first females to be trained in the field, she brought many trees to a campus that had only two standing when she arrived in 1886.
DeChant said of the tree that came down, “(it is) probably one of the ones Mrs. Collier planted.” “She was known for collecting specimens from around the valley and bringing them in here,” He said.
The towering spruce was brought to the ground because of disease throughout its trunk.
“It had an old wound on its west side,” said DeChant. “Three years ago, in checking in that wound, I was knocking on it and getting a really hallow sound,” said DeChant. An exploratory hole confirmed the sound. Just behind the wound, a large cavity of rotten wood had developed.
The festering wound would continue to grow.
“About two months ago, I came in from a weekend and someone had gone into the hole that I was monitoring all this from and had opened it up even further and pulled out a core that was about five feet tall,” said DeChant.
With the now gaping hole, DeChant was able to explore the decaying tree higher up than he could before. Through that exploration, DeChant could see the tree was beyond salvaging and posed a risk to the community around it.
The tree was “crumbly to at least 10 feet,” said DeChant. A 110-foot tree with an average diameter of 38 inches around, perched on a cone of a dying trunk base. Tons of pounds of tree, wider than a school bus, balanced on a mass of crumbling, rotten wood. A recipe for disaster and one DeChant was focused on avoiding.
It’s noticeable when a staple of our green community comes down. The work that goes into keeping our greenery sustained and thriving is less noticeable.
Of our over 4,000 trees, DeChant says, “only about 24 are on constant monitoring,” for severe risk related to their health. Though DeChant reassures that “a thunderstorm could develop tonight and I’m not going to lose sleep over it.”
DeChant spends most of his time keeping trees alive, not cutting them down.
“Every Monday I come in and the first thing in my routine is to do a campus sweep. Figuring out what happened here the last couple of days, what’s changed, what’s moved,” said DeChant. “That’s just part of the game, repeatedly going around and around,” said DeChant.
He doesn’t do it alone. DeChant has a team of 11 groundskeepers, including a few student employees. Though he is the only one dedicated to trees, DeChant knows the importance of the rest of the team. “They’re like my eyes and ears out there,” said DeChant.
The work doesn’t stop when the tree comes down either. There is a thought process for every aspect of each tree on our campus.
With each tree that becomes destined for removal, DeChant looks at every aspect of how that tree could still be beneficial to the community that it helped oxygenate. From donating trees to indigenous tribes around Oregon, incorporating the wood into projects and buildings around campus or leaving logs behind to foster biodiversity and support the insects and animals that live amongst us, DeChant leaves no leaf unturned in exploring the use of every tree.
“Anything I take down I look for nesting or nesting opportunities,” said DeChant. The trees around us are much more than just set pieces, they’re important members of our ecosystem.
Mark Harmon, a professor at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, has said, “In many cases, dead trees are more alive than living ones.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said, “as the tree decomposes, the nutrients once stored within the tree are released.”
DeChant hopes that the logs salvaged from the large Sitka spruce can become a vital part of the ecosystem around us, just as others have around campus. A few great examples of the University using the lumber produced when one of our trees must come down would be the nurse logs in front of the south entrance of DeNorval Unthank JR. Hall or the pillar that stands in the middle of the staircase in Allen Hall.
As for the now empty spot where the Sitka spruce once stood, DeChant doesn’t have full control over what will go there but does have a few ideas. “This site is so high profile that it is going to take a long time to make a decision as to what happens. My plan, short term, is to get that spot ready to replant in the fall, as a holding project,” said DeChant. The Campus Planning Committee will have the final say as to how that spot will look in the long term.
As for the other trees around campus, the University has a Campus Tree Plan that explains many long-term goals as the arboretum that we call the University of Oregon continues to grow.
Be on the lookout for an updated version of the tree plan coming late this year as well as a tree board, a group of individuals that DeChant hopes can help keep the community informed about the efforts the University puts into every tree and help us see them as more than just greenery in our everyday lives.
“For 100 years people walk by and know that tree. Everybody going to class past the EMU has some kind of memory of that tree. You don’t get any more iconic than that. It’s such a hard thing to take away from people and you don’t want people thinking you’re yanking something thoughtlessly,” said DeChant.
The Collier Lawn where the Sitka spruce once stood. Now all that remains is a pile of bark dust and dirt. (Photo by Johnny Media)
