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BY MARTY HAIR
FREE PRESS GARDEN WRITER
Sue Vasko's childhood friend was getting married.
Because they were part of previously established households, the bride and the groom didn't need more towels. So Vasko came up with a different wedding gift -- a Ponderosa pine tree that is now growing in northern Idaho in honor of the nuptials of Kelli Borden and David Moore.
"I like the concept of a tree and how it can reflect how I hope their marriage would end up, growing bigger and stronger and more mature," says Vasko of Oxford. The pine grows on a 10-acre preserve called Celebration Forest near Sandpoint, Idaho, where a deed restriction specifies the dedicated trees will never be harvested.
Planting tribute trees has evergreen appeal, and some people who work in the field say the Internet has added a new leaf, making it easier to locate far-flung forests and suppliers.
For example, after Vasko decided on a tree for Borden, whom she has known since first grade in Dearborn, she used an Internet search engine to find sources of tribute trees. She ended up selecting Celebration Forest, where she also bought a marker to identify the tree as the newlyweds'.
"I like the concept of having something you can go look at," says Vasko, a manager in manufacturing for General Motors Corp. Celebration Forest also sent a notification of the gift to Borden and Moore, who married last year and live near Chicago.
Living memorials
Janice Lucchetti, a former teacher from Plymouth, went online after deciding a memorial tree would be a good way to pay tribute to the memory of a friend's child, who had died. Lucchetti scoured Web pages and selected Celebration Forest because she could buy a specific tree -- in her case, a spruce -- with a guarantee that "these trees were planted and would not be harvested."
According to Celebration Forest, 10 other Michiganders are among the 700 people who have bought trees at the plantation since 1996. The preserve will hold 2,000 trees planted 10 feet apart on a grid. When it fills, founders Dennis and Cherry Clark say they hope to buy preserves at other sites around the country.
The Internet is the way many customers are finding Celebration Forest, Dennis Clark says, although it is also marketing itself through an organization of independent funeral home operators.
Billy Wages, president of the International Order of the Golden Rule and owner of two funeral homes in Georgia, has bought 13 trees in Celebration Forest for customer families and as living memorials to those who have died.
He says memorial trees are "a wonderful way to let a family know we haven't forgotten them after the invoice has been paid."
A company in Littleton, N.H., began selling memorial trees in 1981 for funeral directors to buy for customer families and now, through www.treegivers.com, sells to individuals on the Web. Business has nearly doubled every year since 1999, when Treegivers began promoting itself heavily on the Internet, says Robert Pearson, the company's president. For $32.95-$55.95, depending on options like framed certificates, Treegivers offers a tree to be planted on public land in a state the donor selects.
Trees have symbolized hope for so long that it would be difficult to date the earliest memorial or tribute planting to honor a birth, death, wedding or other significant event. However, the organization American Forests in Washington, D.C., says the idea of a large-scale project gained acceptance with its campaign for a planting of trees for mothers of soldiers killed in World War I.
The group, formerly the American Forestry Association, promoted memorial tree plantings to honor those who died in World War II and is working on cooperative tree plantings in New York City, Virginia, Washington and Pennsylvania for victims of Sept. 11, 2001. For donations of $15-$25 or more, American Forests also will plant trees in honor of individuals on sites needing environmental restoration.
Greening of Detroit
Closer to home, 60 people gathered in a Detroit city park in November to plant a grove of memorial trees bought for donations of $50 or more to the Greening of Detroit.
The trees become "not only a tribute to a loved one but a tribute to the city of Detroit," says Monica Tabares, Greening's development coordinator. Names are placed on a group marker at each grove. In five years, about 300 memorial trees have been planted at four Detroit city parks.
And at an Ontario conservation authority south of Owen Sound, hundreds of people gather every June to remember those for whom memorial trees have been purchased and planted. The idea is so popular that the grove is full, and planting is expanding to land owned by neighboring communities. Trees in the Saugeen Valley Conservation Foundation memorial groves are $48 each.
Deborah Gangloff, American Forests' executive director, says one appeal of planting a tree in memory or tribute is that it gives scale to human life.
"You can play under a tree that your great-grandfather planted, and your grandchildren can play under a tree that you planted," she says. She calls trees "a living representation of someone who used to be around. That captures the imagination." Full-service forest
Dennis Clark got the idea for Celebration Forest while working as a forester for the state of Idaho. A woman asked him to plant a tree on state land in memory of her son.
Customers can choose pines or spruces ($59 each), maples ($129) and oaks ($149), ranging from 2 to 10 feet tall and guaranteed for two years. Other services and products are available, including the scattering of cremated remains at the tree's base ($39), small memorial stones with dedications ($99), engraved granite memorial stones ($499) and granite memorial benches ($599), according to Heidi Stockton, Celebration Forest president. For $29, the company will mail the honoree or family a digital photo of the tree in the fall along with a sample leaf.
Sue Vasko says her friend Kelli grew up enjoying family camping trips, and she hopes that someday the newlyweds will go camping and stop at Celebration Forest to check out their tree -- or perhaps their own grove.
"If they get busy having kids, I can plant more trees next to it," Vasko says.
Published April 7, 2004
http://www.freep.com/features/living/tree7_20040407.htm
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