Organization Shines Spotlight on Chatham’s Grand Trees

By Randall Rigsbee, Chatham News + Record Staff

There was nothing noteworthy, as far as Judy Lessler could tell, about the old redbud tree growing near her home on her farm outside of Pittsboro.

A big tree, it’s true, and with some age on it, the redbud had been on the property as long as Lessler had.

“It’s at least 45 years old,” she said. “We’ve lived here since 1975, and we didn’t plant it. And, really, we had never paid much attention it.”

Her late husband had tended to it, she recalled, pruning it as needed; and when they were young, her children had enjoyed climbing it.

After she and her husband established Harland’s Creek Farm on the property in 1999, the tree continued to grow, quietly and without any fanfare inhabiting its humble spot on the farm.

“I have to admit,” Lessler said, “it’s been ‘just a tree.’ That’s how I thought about it.”

But that changed when Lessler, who still operates the organic Harland’s Creek Farm on which the tree grows, learned recently that the big redbud was something more: it’s a state champion.

At the urging of a friend, a retired park ranger who’d taken notice of the redbud, Lessler contacted Grand Trees of Chatham about the large, unassuming tree.

“They came and they measured it,” Lessler said, soon determining — just weeks ago — the tree’s size made it the state’s largest redbud.

Lessler’s newly-recognized champion redbud brings the tally of state champion trees in Chatham County to six; four of them (an American elder, a Carolina laurel cherry, a white oak and now Lessler’s eastern redbud) are located in the county’s eastern half, and two (a blackjack oak and a scarlet oak) are in the western part of the county.

Of the 20 trees in North Carolina on the National Register of Champion Trees, two (the blackjack oak and the chalk maple) are in Chatham County.

“Considering there are 100 counties in North Carolina, we’re doing pretty well,” said Sharon Garbutt, one of about a dozen Chatham County volunteers serving on the Grand Trees of Chatham board.

Established in 2009 and funded for its first couple of years through a modest (around $2,000) N.C. Urban and Community Forestry grant, Grand Trees of Chatham has a simple purpose, defined in the organization’s mission statement: “The mission of Grand Trees of Chatham is to increase public understanding and appreciation of Chatham County’s valuable and irreplaceable trees.”

This is accomplished through two components: tree recognition, which seeks to identify and recognize notable trees — like Lessler’s redbud — throughout Chatham County; and public education, passing along information about the value and care of trees.

“We’ve done programs with the schools and libraries, the parks system,” said Sharon, who serves on the GTOC alongside her husband, J.C., also a tree enthusiast. (J.C. said he has allowed only one bumper sticker on his car. It reads: “May the forest be with you.”)

The organization — operating until recently as an advisory committee to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners — has within the past year become a non-profit agency.

That change was prompted largely by the annual sale of Grand Trees of Chatham’s annual calendars, which are produced by local photographer Gary Simpson, also a GTOC board member. The calendars are sold at various retailers in the county.

“We began to actually have some funds [thanks to calendar sales],” Sharon said. “It turns out, if you’re an advisory committee for the county, you cannot make any money.”

So the group attained non-profit status, though the county continues to support the organization with its annual awards presentation recognizing newly-honored champion trees. Chatham County Extension service is also “tremendously helpful to us,” Sharon said.

How do trees get recognized? The process begins with a nomination. Anyone, with the permission of the proper landowner, may nominate a potential grand tree by contacting the organization at grandtreesofchatham@gmail.com.

“Then we just make contact with the owner and we set up a time to go out and assess the tree,” said J.C.

There’s a standard formula applied to all assessed trees. It’s the same formula employed statewide and nationwide.

“When you assess a tree,” J.C. said, “you look at the circumference in inches, the height in feet — which is done with something called a clinometer — and you look at the crown spread, which is the canopy. You put all those together and you get points. And based on those points, that’s how you determine if a tree is a state champion.”

The assessment formula was developed, Sharon said, in the early 1900s for use by lumber companies “so they’d know where the big trees were to cut them down.”

The canopy, of little interest for lumber purposes, wasn’t as valuable in the assessment then as now, Sharon said. Today, the value of the canopy is recognized beyond its use to the lumber industry.

“We need the trees,” she said, “to soak up all this carbon. They’re just natural absorbers of CO2.”

According to an N.C. State website on their benefits, trees “absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gasses, such as sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide from the air and release oxygen. One large tree can supply a day’s supply of oxygen for four people.”

“Trees,” said J.C., “can help us in a lot of ways a lot of people aren’t aware of.”

Grand Trees of Chatham is helping spread the message.

Not all trees assessed by GTOC volunteers, of course, end up being state champions. Some are Chatham County champions, others meritorious, others notable as “future champions.”

Owners of state champions receive a plaque recognizing the honor.

The honor, however, comes with no further obligation. Owners may still, if they wish, cut down a champion tree, but so far that hasn’t happened.

In Lessler’s case, the recognition has changed the way she views the redbud that took root on her property decades ago and has matured into a champion.

“Now I’m worried that something might happen to it,” she said, laughing. “It’s kind of like owning a rock that turned out to be a diamond.”

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The Chatham News + Record is Chatham County’s source for local news and journalism. The Chatham News, established in 1924, and the Chatham Record, founded in 1878, have come together to better serve the Chatham community as the Chatham News + Record. Covering news, business, sports and more, the News + Record is working to strengthen community ties through compelling coverage of life in Chatham County.