AmericanHeritageTree

Our start was with the need to find a creative way to memorialize the death of a relative. We stumbled on the opportunity to purchase a historic tree for each of our family members, and it was very effective.

10 years later we retired from our career jobs and decided that pursuing the growth of historical trees would be a worthwhile thing to do for us and to preserve American history.

Along our driveway we have about 6 American Chestnut tree saplings. They are from the American Chestnut Foundation in Ashville, NC. These trees though are hybridized and are about 95% American Chestnut, and 5% Chinese Chestnut, and the idea is that these new breed of trees should be blight resistant. These trees are just for personal use and aren't part of American Heritage Trees. If you're interested in the American Chestnut Trees, definitely check out the American Chestnut Foundation.

Thanks for the kind comments, we're actually in the process of updating the website right now.

Our philosophy right now is to try to stick with significant historic Americans and events. After we find a historical site that wants to partner with us, we choose trees that have a story and are relevant to that individual. Relevance as in writing about them, climbing them, growing up around them, etc. So, it's not really the variety we look for, but how much of a relevance the tree has to the individual or event.

We talk to our plants everyday and they just keep growing!

They're named after the historic event or figure they are associated with. Most of the trees are located on the birth sites of key Americans, where they grew up around these trees. Many of the trees we grow are from 200 year old trees.

Every time we try to pick a favorite we end up arguing among ourselves. There are two that we really like. The first is the George Washington Buckeye, which was planted by George Washington himself in 1784. The other would be the Moon Trees, who's mother went to the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission.

First we contact the historical site and establish a partnership agreement with them. We then either go to the site and collect the seeds ourselves, working with the staff to gather them, or the organization we've partnered with collects the seeds themselves and sends them to us.