This Old Tree

10-26-24 The Mariner and the Mulberry - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still introduces us to The Mariner and the Mulberry in this episode. A large old mulberry tree at Truro Vineyards on Cape Cod comes with a legend. A sea captain brought it back from the South Pacific and planted it for his young wife. Or his girlfriend. Or someone named Amelia. Is this story true? Who was the captain, and what became of him? Come along to open dusty books, unfurl old maps, and decide what you think.

09-28-24 Europe's 2023 Tree of the Year: The Fabrykant Oak - This Old Tree

In this episode, host Doug Still introduces us to The Fabrykant Oak. The Fabrykant Oak, translated as the "Factory Owner's Oak," received 45,000 votes to become Europe's Tree of the Year. Located in Łódź, it captures the hearts of people in its home country of Poland and around the world. Full of personality and stunningly beautiful, the story of this Quercus Robur strikes deep into the city's culture and history. How does an old tree overcome the past to become a symbol of rebirth and a brighter future?

08-24-24 The Emancipation Oak - This Old Tree

In this episode, host Doug Still introduces us to a 300-year-old Live Oak tree on the campus of Hampton University in Virginia that stuns visitors with its strength and beauty. It’s also an enduring symbol of a watershed moment in American history - the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War, which freed enslaved people in the rebel states. How could a tree play a role in that momentous event locally? What did emancipation truly mean to African Americans in 1863? How does the tree still inspire the hearts and imagination of people today?

07-27-24 The Autograph Tree - This Old Tree

In this episode, host Doug Still introduces us to a stunning copper beech tree in Ireland’s County Galway that attracts tourists from around the world. Lady Gregory was its owner, and she drew legendary writers of her day to her house and garden at Coole Park - William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and others. If they were lucky, they were allowed to etch their names into the bark of what’s now known as the Autograph Tree. Learn the full story steeped in Irish literary history.

06-29-24 Trees in Song: Season 1 Finale - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still does a season one recap that features thematic highlights from the first 18 episodes, Doug's favorite songs about trees, and an interview with Dee Lee, arborist, and songwriter!

05-25-24 Texas Shade: The Founders' Oak - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still introduces you to The Founders' Oak in this month's episode of This Old Tree. The Founder's Oak in New Braunfels is a "Famous Tree of Texas." The 300-year-old live oak has given shelter to a Spanish Mission, a German Prince who brought thousands of settlers, old Texas families that date back to the Alamo, and the Comanche Nation. Its rich cultural history includes a new designation as a "Comanche Marker Tree." What is it about this tree's history that mirrors the founding of Texas itself?

04-27-24 Preservation is Progress: The Brontë Oak - This Old Tree

In this month's episode of This Old Tree, host Doug Still introduces us to The Brontë Oak, which is a massive white oak tree in Oakville, Ontario, that has been threatened by every type of construction project imaginable. Logging, overhead power lines, a regional water conduit, highway expansion, you name it. But in the face of multi-billion dollar corporations, it still stands thanks to the collective efforts of a persuasive neighbor, two savvy arborists, an 87-year-old schoolteacher, a tuned-in Town Councilor, and a favorite Canadian folk-rock singer.

03-30-24 The Moses Cleaveland Trees - This Old Tree

In this month's episode of This Old Tree, host Doug Still introduces you to The Moses Cleaveland Trees. In 1946, 153 "Moses Cleaveland Trees" were chosen as landmark trees to represent the City of Cleveland's 150-year anniversary. Not only did they harken back to the pre-settlement forest—they were, in fact, part of it. The existence of each one became hazy over time until a group organized by the City and the Early Settlers Association set out to find them again. Do they still survive?

02-24-24 The Imperial Pine Bonsai - This Old Tree

In this month's episode of This Old Tree, host Doug Still introduces you to The Imperial Pine Bonsai. The stately "Imperial Pine" is the only bonsai ever to leave the Japanese Emperor's collection, and it resides at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, DC. Listen to the behind-the-scenes story about how it got there during a critical moment in diplomatic history between Japan and the United States.

01-27-24 The Katsura at Dumbarton Oaks - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still introduces you to the charming old katsura tree in Beatrix Farrand’s famous garden at Dumbarton Oaks. It might be the oldest katsura in North America, or maybe not, but its origins relate to the burgeoning interest in Japanese trees and plants in the second half of the 19th century when Japan opened up to the world. Listen in, as the tree receives traditional care from Japanese Master Gardener Kurato Fujimoto.

12-31-23 Tree Story Shorts Part II - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still introduces the second edition of Tree Story Shorts on This Old Tree, where listeners get to contribute and tell their own tree stories! From New York to California to China and Nepal, listen to what people say about the trees that inspire them.

11-26-23 The Major Oak of Sherwood Forest - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still looks at The Major Oak of Sherwood Forest in this month's episode of This Old Tree. Sherwood Forest in the County of Nottinghamshire lays claim to a world-famous tree, The Major Oak. It may have harbored Robin Hood and his merry men or perhaps people like them. Admirers from around the world visit the beloved English oak drawn by the legend. Two Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve guests help describe why the tree is so special. One is Paul Cook, the Warden tasked with maintaining the woodland and the landscape. The other is the Sheriff of Nottingham, or, that is, Richard Townsley, a tour guide and local authority on Robin Hood. Thanks to the legend, there's an aura around this tree, but the allure and lasting popularity of England's arboreal icon has become about so much more. 

10-28-23 The Birthing Tree - This Old Tree

In this month's This Old Tree, host Doug Still looks at The Birthing Tree. There's a huge, spreading, 350-year-old plus white oak in McMinnville, Tennessee, with a legend. It was known to the early pioneers, and it's now a state landmark tree. Listen to its story told by Warren County Historian Jimmy Haley and former state urban forester Tom Simpson. Come along and discover the Birthing Tree through the eyes of a real pioneer family.

09-23-23 Guarding the Cedars: Gilgamesh, and John Perlin’s ”A Forest Journey” - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still talks to John Perlin Historian, author of A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization. The two discuss the story of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, the Sumerian king of Uruk, threatens to cut down the sacred Cedar Forest and claim its wood for his people. First, he must kill the terrifying guardian of the forest, Humbaba. Can he do it? What will the gods think, and what will it mean for humanity? The story's message is central to John Perlin's republished book, A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization. Forests, and the wood they provide, have been crucial to human society since the beginning of recorded time, and now the fight against climate change. But what does history tell us about how we treat them?

08-26-23 The Charter Oak - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still explores The Charter Oak. King James II of England threatened to revoke the precious Charter of Connecticut in 1687, and sent one of his men to retrieve it. That meant an end to the colony's limited democracy and independence.  But before it was exchanged during a key meeting, a hero slipped out of the room with it under his arm and hid it within the cavity of an old oak tree. That tree - the Charter Oak - is now a state icon. Get the full story here!

07-29-23 Luna Endures: A Redwood’s Survival Tale - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still explores Luna Endures: A Redwood's Survival Tale. Luna is a 200 ft tall redwood tree that towers on a ridge deep within a privately owned forest in northern California. You may remember Julia Butterfly Hill's remarkable 2-year "tree sit" in the 1990's that helped save the tree and shed light on the indiscriminate clearcutting of redwood forests. But after an agreement was reached to save the redwood and the national news media left, another crisis arose that threatened Luna's existence, introduced new heroes, and ushered in a new era of collaboration.

06-24-23 The Mies van der Rohe Honeylocust of the Alfred Caldwell Grove - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still explores The Mies van der Rohe Honeylocust of the Alfred Caldwell Grove. A big, old, thorny honeylocust tree on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago has a place within the history of modernist architecture and landscape design. How so? Professor and landscape architect Ron Henderson talks about the tree's relationship to Mies van der Rohe and his colleague Alfred Caldwell, and how the honeylocust became the feathery urban forest powerhouse it is today. 

05-27-23 The First 9/11 Survivor Trees - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still explores The Survivor Tree. The Survivor Tree is a well known tree planted at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City that was rescued from the rubble at the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks. It has become a stirring symbol of resilience and survival visited by millions of people. But few people remember there were six other trees rescued from the site and transplanted in early October of 2001. Host Doug Still was part of the City Parks Department team that found them along with his former boss Bram Gunther. Doug and Bram recount the day they visited Ground Zero, describe how these remarkable trees were saved, and discover what's become of them. 

04-29-23 Chronicling a Tree: Thoreau’s Concord Elm - This Old Tree

In this months This Old Tree host Doug Still explores Thoreau's Concord Elm. Concord, Massachusetts, 1856. Four men cut down a huge, seemingly healthy American elm tree using block and tackle, and ropes drawn by a horse. The graceful tree towered above a house whose owners heard creaking during a storm - they felt unsafe and had it removed. The event would have been long forgotten, except one of America’s greatest writers and earliest environmentalists also lived in Concord - Henry David Thoreau. Supremely ticked-off, the removal of the stately elm inspired a flurry of journal writing by Thoreau that defined elms as symbols of virtue that looked to Concord’s past and the country’s future. Guest Thomas Campanella, Professor at Cornell University and author of Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm, shares his work. It turns out, elm trees  helped define our young nation’s sense of itself.
 

03-25-23 The Edison Banyan - This Old Tree

Host Doug Still explores The Edison Banyan in this month's This Old Tree. Why did Thomas Edison plant a banyan tree sapling at his winter residence in 1926? You guessed it, there was an experiment involved. Native to India, it is now a massive, beloved tree at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, Florida. While this isn’t an “escape from the lab” story, it is sort of a “took over the lab” story! Debbie Hughes, the Horticultural Director, explains what happened. Also, we dig into the mythology of fig trees - specifically “strangler” figs - and their critical ecological and cultural importance with rainforest ecologist and author Mike Shanahan. https://thisoldtree.buzzsprout.com/