The old California bay tree in Seanette Corkill’s yard towers above her house and has a gravity that’s attracted her kids and others from around the Arnada neighborhood well before she and her husband bought the property.
Corkill realized the special role the tree played in her community and she thought others should too. That’s why in 2000 she nominated it to be included in the city of Vancouver’s heritage tree inventory.
“We nominated it when we lived in that house,” she said from beneath the big tree and pointing to a home across the alley. “We would let the kids run back and forth through the alley and (the homeowner) eventually put in the tree swing. … The kids had an emotional attachment, so did we — and it was huge. They usually don’t get that big.”
Although the kids who played around it have grown up, she still occasionally finds a neighbor in her yard, plucking a few of its aromatic leaves for their evening meal.
Hers is just one of 36 trees recognized for their outsized role in Vancouver. But for the first time in about eight years, the city of Vancouver is accepting nominations for new heritage trees.
Heritage trees are selected through a public hearing. Once they’re part of the program they’re designated with a small plaque and listed on the city’s register and the city works with the homeowners to get them the care they need. Additionally, heritage trees are supposed to meet certain criteria before the current or future property owner removes it.
“It’s a way to record the local history, as people get older it’s an opportunity to pass down those stories and to recognize these trees in the community,” said Vancouver Urban Forester Charles Ray. “There’s also another layer of protection when they get heritage tree status.”
While some trees like Corkill’s have a neighborhood story, others have a larger significance. Near Officers Row are two mature American chestnuts, a species that once covered the much of the Eastern United States until an exotic disease nearly drove them to extinction. Today, only an estimated 500 remain, scattered around the country.
A chestnut oak in the Old City Cemetery on Mill Plain Boulevard was sent as a seedling from George Washington’s plantation in Mount Vernon as a present to the local Free and Accepted Masons Lodge #4 and planted in 1931.
“These trees have stories,” Jessica George of the Urban Forestry department said.
Not just any tree is going to make it into the inventory, it has to meet at least one of the city’s standards. To be considered, a tree has to be 36 inches in diameter or greater; have distinctive size, shape, location or be of a unique species or age; have a distinctive function or aesthetic relationship to another natural resource; have ties to a significant person, event or property; or it’s just a really good-looking tree.
George of the Urban Forestry department said the city is looking to add about four more trees to the inventory. Applicants from central and east Vancouver are especially encouraged to apply. But no one should bother submitting a tree of heaven or a holly — both of which are considered invasive species.
The nomination period runs until July 31. Nominators aren’t required to do too much work besides telling city officials about the tree. But city officials go through a fairly substantial process — including mailers and public comment periods — to make a designation.
