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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Tree's company: Kent, Barbara, and their children Charlie and Julia, loved their white oak tree so much that they (successfully) lobbied the city to place it on a list of protected trees.
Family wins protection for towering scarlet oak in their yard
By Steven Raphael
"Grandmother Willow" is a 42-inch wide scarlet oak that lives in Willow Glen. The century-old beauty stands in the backyard of the Green family, who consider it a part of their family.
And because the tree is so special to them, the Greens even remodeled their house around the tree, hired a certified arborist to care for it regularly and spent six months wading through red tape to get the tree placed on the city's list of protected trees.
Thanks to their efforts, Grandmother Willow was officially added to the San Jose Heritage Tree List on June 27.
"We felt that it needed an advocate, someone to protect it so people couldn't recklessly damage it," Barbara Green said.
The list was created to recognize and protect trees such as Grandmother Willow. San Jose Director of Planning James Derryberry said that the list "provides for official recognition and protection of trees ... that are of special significance to the community because of their history, girth, height, species or unique quality."
Although the heritage tree list in San Jose was not started until 1985, the idea is actually over a hundred years old. In 1875, the first Heritage Tree List was created in Washington, D.C., according to San Jose City Arborist Mark Beaudoin.
Trees are nominated in several ways. Some neighborhoods band together to get several trees added to the list. When there is development in a new area, the city arborists will often get word of an exceptional tree that has been found. Occasionally, individual residents, such as the Greens, nominate a tree.
According to Beaudoin, the city's arborists personally evaluate every tree that is proposed for the list. After evaluating Grandmother Willow, Beaudoin found that it is "a wonderful specimen, the oldest and biggest of that particular oak." Grandmother Willow is a scarlet oak, a tree that is particularly rare in this area, a fact that makes it even more special.
Barbara Green has known how special the tree was since she found it 12 years ago when the Greens were looking to buy a house. The tree, which can be seen for blocks, immediately caught her eye and attracted her to it.
It was love at first sight; Green knew instantly that she had found the perfect home for her family. Despite the fact that her husband was out of town, she made an offer on the house that day. "I knew [my husband] would love it," she explained. "He did, and we've been here for 12 years."
Driving up her block, it's evident that the Greens are not the only tree lovers in the area. The street looks like something out of a Monet painting, a peaceful scene straight from the 18th century. Walls of trees line both sides of the road, their branches forming a green and brown canopy overhead. Smaller trees and shrubs decorate nearly every yard along the way.
Looming overhead, Grandmother Willow towers over the rest of the trees. Yet, from up close, it almost seems to beckon climbers to perch in its thick, plentiful branches. Within four feet of it's top, the tree splits into four limbs, each as thick as a normal tree.
At its base, the Green's light gray patio rises to meet a curved bench directly in front of the tree. If the house looks as if it was designed around the tree, it's because it was. Last year, the Greens remodeled their house to enhance the tree's presence in their lives. The grey and white home now hooks gently around Grandmother Willow.
The tree is visible from nearly everywhere in the house. Waking up in the morning, Barbara and her husband Kent open their eyes to the beautiful sight of Grandmother Willow's light green leaves swaying in the morning sunlight, courtesy of a skylight specifically designed for that purpose.
Considering how special the tree is to the Green family--not to mention how much it enhances their property value--it should come as no surprise that they were willing to go so far to keep the tree from being harmed.
But now that the tree is on the list, Grandmother Willow can't be cut down or trimmed without permission of the San Jose City Arborists.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
