FORT LAUDERDALE — Expert tree mover Tom Cox has a message for all the folks fretting over the fate of Fort Lauderdale’s famous rain tree now that it’s been moved closer to the New River to make way for two apartment towers.
“News flash: The tree’s going to live,” Cox told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an exclusive interview.
Cox, founder and CEO of the company hired by a developer to move the rain tree, is staking his reputation on it. His Texas-based company, Environmental Design Inc., has made a name for itself moving giant trees.
“We do this all over the world,” he said. “This is not the biggest tree we’ve ever moved. Or the oldest tree. We’ve moved 2,000-year-old bristlecone pines. Those trees predate Jesus walking the Earth.”
In Fort Lauderdale, the tree in question — still a regal presence along the 400 block of Southwest Fourth Avenue — has become a symbol of the friction between the region’s ongoing development boom and the fight to save a shrinking tree canopy.
Fort Lauderdale granted the rain tree special protection in 1987, requiring anyone wanting to move it or cut it down to first get permission from the city commission.
Developer Asi Cymbal sparked an outcry a decade ago when he announced plans to build apartment towers on the same 6-acre parcel where the tree was planted a century ago. The tree, Cymbal said, was in the way and would need to be moved. Despite the chorus of critics, commissioners approved his request.
Ever since, tree lovers and local arborists have been watching the tree for the slightest sign of distress — a fact not lost on Cox.
“The saga over this rain tree has been going on for approaching a decade,” Cox said. “Whenever we pruned the tree or watered the tree or touched the tree, there was a hue and cry of ‘The tree’s going to die.’”
‘Our patients have to live’
Cox says he wants to put all the doubters out there at ease.
“We would never get involved in a project unless we were assured a tree was going to live,” he said. “People remember when a tree dies. Our patients have to live. It’s just like a heart transplant doctor. You can’t just move it for the sake of a buck or at the whim of a developer. Whether those towers get built or not — and they will — we care about whether that tree lives.”
Cymbal says he hired the best experts he could find to move the tree. And he’s paying them $500,000 to make sure it’s done right. He has also agreed to pay the city $1 million if the tree dies within five years of being moved.
When workers with Environmental Design move a tree, they envelop the root ball with burlap and ensure the roots remain well watered throughout the journey. The company has safely relocated trees weighing more than 1 million pounds.
“We put together a prescription for how the process was going to go,” Cox said of the rain tree. “And that involved years of preparation for that tree.”
Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel
A water taxi passes by a century-old rain tree in downtown Fort Lauderdale on March 30. The landmark tree has since been moved closer to the New River. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)
Now in forever home
A year ago, Environmental Design moved the 1.5 million pound tree using a special ArborLift that can roll giant trees over turf and concrete with minimal harm.
The rain tree moved closer to the water, but not all the way to its final destination. For nearly a year, the tree remained perched on a grassy plateau 6 feet above ground until a new seawall could be built. With the seawall complete, the rain tree was moved on July 21 to its permanent new home, about 15 feet from the water’s edge.
The Samanea saman, or rain tree, was so named because its leaves curl when it rains.
Rose Bechard Butman, an arborist and member of the Fort Lauderdale Garden Club, has taken a special interest in the tree, speaking out at commission meetings and visiting the tree in person to check on its welfare.
Butman paid another visit this week.
“Five years is the tell-all with the large trees,” she said. “They can do well for a couple years and then start to decline. This tree is almost 100 years old. It’s like operating on a 100-year-old woman. If you do open-heart surgery on a 25-year-old woman, she will have better chances of recouping. I would not be satisfied with just one year of it hanging in. Everybody is unique. And every tree is unique.”
More than a year ago, Cymbal hired Jeff Shimonski, president of Tropical Designs of Florida, to monitor the rain tree weekly.
“The city arborist has been checking on the tree and so has Jeff Shimonski, one of the foremost experts in South Florida,” Cox said. “He was put on retainer to inspect the tree every week. That’s been going on for over a year with weekly reports.”
Shimonski, a tropical horticulturist and consulting arborist, told the Sun Sentinel he checks on tree every Friday.
“I’ve visited the tree over 48 times,” Shimonski said. “I’m intimately involved with this tree.”
Healthy roots, healthy tree
A Silva Cell system used to support large trees has already been put in place next to the root ball and covered with soil, he said. The Silva Cells will allow the roots to grow freely, making it possible for the tree to keep on growing and thriving, Shimonski said.
“The place it was moved to is an excellent location,” he said. “The reflected light from the river will aid it in growing. The tree is in good condition, contrary to what a lot of local arborists have said.”
Cox seconds that opinion.
When the tree was first moved last year, experts hired to build the seawall suggested Cox wait until that work was done before moving the tree to its final home.
“We let the tree sit there and grow more new roots,” he said. “When you root prune a tree, you can tell how a tree is doing by the roots it generates while it’s sitting in place. You let a tree heal in place. And now a spaghetti mass of white new roots has been generated by this tree. Forget about the top. What happens below the ground is much more important than what happens above the ground. When we lifted the tree up to move it to its final place, it had a mass of new roots. And that’s the ultimate determinant of vigor.”
Critics have said the tree, sitting so close to the river’s edge, might be harmed by saltwater intrusion.
Cox dismissed that concern, saying the tree has been planted high up to protect it from sea level rise.
“Plants and trees always do better when they are planted higher than existing grade,” he said. “Trees die when they sit in a condition of inundation from water or from soil. Too much soil is like putting a pillow over your face. There has to be an air exchange for roots to survive. When you overwater a house plant or a tree, the tree drowns because it can’t uptake oxygen.”
Out of the woods
Laura Tooley, Fort Lauderdale’s urban forester, has also been keeping an eye on the tree, making weekly visits to monitor its health.
Some tree watchers have noticed the tree’s canopy is not as lush as it was before last year’s move. But that’s nothing to be worried about, Tooley said.
“It is completely normal for a reduction in leaf canopy when there is a reduction in the root system,” she said.
She also dismissed any concerns about saltwater intrusion.
“The bottom of the root ball is 3.5 feet above the high tide mark,” Tooley said. “I would not expect king tides to go above 2 feet. And most of the feeder roots will be in the top 30 inches anyway.”
Cox and his team are taking other measures to make sure the prized rain tree continues to live and thrive.
“That tree has a better chance of living than it did in its original spot,” Cox said. “It’s going to get supplemental care. It’s getting automatic irrigation. It gets pruned for deadwood. It has an anchoring system to protect it from heavy winds. And it will have a feeding and pesticide program, as required.”
The way Cox sees it, the rain tree is now off the ventilator and out of the woods. But there are still dangers no one can control — tree killers like lightning strikes and hurricanes.
Can the rain tree survive a major hurricane?
“I would tell you, ‘Ask God,’” Cox said. “Under no circumstance would I tell you it can survive a major hurricane. Can the condo next door survive a major hurricane? Who knows. But the tree is in a better and healthier condition than it was before the move.”
Cox says he intends to keep checking on the tree in the coming years.
“We care about our patients, whether we are directly or indirectly involved,” he said. “We planted the trees at the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site. I go back and check on those trees at least two or three times a year. We will continue to check on the rain tree, as long as I’m still drawing a breath.”
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @Susannah_Bryan