The Hunt for Charlotte’s Treasure Trees with Patrick George and Brett DuPree

Virtual Meeting

Free and Open to the Public

Mecklenburg County had a program to identify its unique Treasure Trees from the late 1980s into the 1990s. Owners of these special trees were given a certificate and the trees were marked with special Treasure Tree tags. What happened to the original treasure trees when the program was forgotten? Join us as we hear from Patrick and Brett about their recent efforts to revive the program and the challenging two-year hunt to locate and document the original trees. They will also discuss the new certification program for Charlotte’s Treasure Trees.

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Patrick George

I was first introduced to the wonder of trees by my mother who told me at the age of 4 if I planted “the helicopter” maple seeds that they would turn into trees. They grew roots in my heart and my future was determined. Plant a tree with your children and grandchildren.
I grew up in CLT climbing trees to the point that my parents worried. I took a gap year between high school and forestry school to travel and learned how to climb working for Asplundh. I dropped out of NC State Forestry school in my junior year because I realized I wanted to be an arborist who cared for trees, not harvested them. A year later in 1979 I started Heartwood and that’s been the last 42 years. Back in 2009 I could see how much canopy we were losing and started “The Queens Crown” to help identify trees around Charlotte so folks could identify with individual trees. Then TreesCharlotte was formed to plant trees to regrow the crown.

Brett Dupree
The Tree Hunter

I have always loved the outdoors. I spent a lot of time during college hiking all over the NC mountain forests, and in the last 10 years I grew fascinated with the Coast Redwoods. My wife and I made three trips out there in the span of 5 years. In 2018, I started noticing a few of the old Treasure Tree tags on big trees around the Myers Park area. I started digging around, and found my way into the new committee that was in the process of trying to revive the original program. I taught myself as much as I could about tree identification and all of the formal measurement techniques, and I read a couple of really amazing books. In the last two years, I took on a personal quest to try and find every one of the original 123 program trees (living or dead) and help to raise awareness about their unique ecological significance to our area.