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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Conversation will focus on affordable housing ... Food for Hope drive helps feed Ashland families ... When you can go home again — with some help ... Conversation will focus on affordable housing ... Food for Hope drive helps feed Ashland families ... When you can go home again — with some help ... HISTORY On the trail of Ashland's historical trees Researcher hopes to qualify a local tree as an Oregon Heritage Tree By John Darling for the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling for the Tidings Posted Nov. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am By John Darling for the Tidings Posted Nov. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am Vote for Tree of the Year --> You can't pick a Heritage Tree, but you can vote for Ashland's Tree of the Year by going to gis.ashland.or.us/TOY2015vote, where nominees are listed. You also can vote by emailing Zechariah He... » Read more X Vote for Tree of the Year You can't pick a Heritage Tree, but you can vote for Ashland's Tree of the Year by going to gis.ashland.or.us/TOY2015vote, where nominees are listed. You also can vote by emailing Zechariah Heck at [email protected] or calling 541-552-2052. The voting period will end Dec.1. Ashland's 2015 Tree of the Year will be announced during the Tree Commission meeting on December 3, 2015. See past winners at www.ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=11718 . » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2324,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> Nancy Appling Salucci is looking for a few good trees. A 14-year member of the Oregon Heritage Tree Committee, Ashlander Salucci spends much of her time tracking down trees with a past, hoping to nominate them to the roster of living trees that were present with historical events or people. Half a dozen Heritage Trees have been found and honored with plaques in the Rogue Valley, but none so far in Ashland — an absence Salucci would like to remedy. So, she reaching out to Ashlanders, asking they inform her if they know of any big, old trees in the city or any historical events in which a tree played a part. The closest Heritage Tree to Ashland is a sugar pine at Tub Springs, a critical site on the pioneer Applegate Trail, which crossed the Cascade crest beginning in 1846. Highway 66 now passes the site. Others in the valley are the Hanley Farm willow west of Medford, the Britt sequoia in Jacksonville and the Harry & David comice pear trees connected with the Medford company. In Ashland, the monkey puzzle tree, a dawn redwood (thought extinct for 60 million years, but replanted from China) and the sycamore grove in Lithia Park, are historic, but the first two are already honored elsewhere in the state. Salucci is working on the novel idea of having the entire tree-rich, 93-acre Lithia Park designated for the honor. The Heritage Tree award was created in 1893 by the Ladies Chautauqua Club and stocked for many decades with exotic and native flora. Clearly in love with her tree research, Salucci got into it while a Chautauqua lecturer for a decade with the Oregon Council for the Humanities. The director of the Heritage Tree program heard her lecture, “Forbidden Fruit, the Apple in History, Literature and Legend” and, she says, demanded she join the program. “There are about 17 of us and none of us quit,” she notes. “I’m the chairman and Southern Oregon representative on the committee. What I do is attend meetings, vet nominations (of trees) and seek nominations. My area is the Rogue Valley to the Idaho border.” There are several Heritage Trees in the deserts of Central and Eastern Oregon, she notes. And, she says, there's an “absolutely a chance Ashland’s going to get one." "People need to call me and tell me the story and show me the tree,” she says. What makes a tree historic? "It's a tree or grove of trees associated with events that have been made significant to Oregon’s broad pattern of history,” says Salucci, reading from the program’s mission. What could help qualify Lithia Park for Heritage status, says Ashland historian George Kramer, is that it was designed by John McLaren, creator of Golden Gate Park. Adding to that, it was shaped into what it is today by Chet Corry, who joined the staff in 1937, became city parks superintendent in 1939 and worked on it for three formative decades. “He was there forever. He was a trained landscape architect, graduated from University of Oregon,” says Kramer. Kramer's other picks for heritage trees in Ashland, he notes, would be a Monterey cypress at Briscoe School, corner of Laurel and North Main — and the giant deodora cedars in the parking lot of the Haggen grocery store on Siskiyou Boulevard. Ashland Junior High School stood on that site until 1961 and students would have their lunch under those trees, he says. Will a tree or trees get on the Heritage Tree roster? “Yes, it’s absolutely possible,” says Salucci. “We just have to find them.” For more on the program, see: ortravelexperience.com/oregon-heritage-trees/about-heritage-trees . John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected]. By John Darling for the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling for the Tidings Posted Nov. 24, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Comment or view comments Terms of Service /* $( document ).ready(function() { // Jquery mobile is trying to style the button and leaving a blank gry button on top of a white button $("#viafouracoms .vf-comment-controls li.vf-right").html(' Submit '); });*/ » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with DailyTidings.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Alerts Email alerts RSS feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Propel Marketing Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Mobile Site Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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