McDaniel said the project was possible through the great relationship Trees Columbus and other groups like Parks and Rec built with each other. “We started the relationship with Parks and Rec with Lakebottom Park, since a lot of trees get knocked down there. “We said we would love to be able to take this idea of restoring the tree canopy to all the parks, not just the one. We really got that
H ow T r e es f r o m C o o p e r C r eek Pa r k
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rank Schley has always built his guitars with a heart turned toward this community. His handcrafted instruments, like the Damcaster, use cast-off materials from Columbus’ history, like the old pine pieces of the downtown dam, into guitars. He is able to turn “junk” into some of the most resonant and beautiful musical instruments you can buy in Georgia -- hell, anywhere. So when he heard that there was an opportunity to help salvage some iconic trees in Columbus, he jumped at it. With the partnership between the city’s Parks and Rec department and Trees Columbus, he’ll be able to turn some downed trees from Cooper Creek Park into 15 exquisite, locally-crafted guitars. The idea came about months ago, when the city had to cut down some majestic oak trees on the median of Broadway, said Trees Columbus executive director Dorothy Rodrigue McDaniel. “I had talked to Frank a couple times before, but when those trees came down in the median of Broadway, we didn’t know about that ahead of time and those trees got sent to the landfill. But that’s when I got the contact information for Frank. Next time, I was able to give him a call.” For decades, Cooper Creek Park has been a green oasis in the middle of the city. People wander the park in the morning, bright eyed with binoculars at the ready, to search for birds and wildlife. People run the fitness trail under the cool green canopy of oaks and ash trees. Families bring their kids to picnic by the water, play on the playgrounds and feed the geese and ducks. But persistent flooding has damaged some of the park’s infrastructure and amenities, and harmed some of the trees. Thankfully, the city received a grant to upgrade a playground at Cooper Creek. Trees Columbus was called in to do a full survey of the surrounding trees and make recommendations for which should be removed and where new trees should be planted. “One of the things that we did through the Canopy Restoration Project (an initiative of Trees Columbus to repair the city’s thinning tree canopy) is to come up with a system for evaluating trees,” McDaniel said. “What is the new square footage, how much space do they need, the trees that are on site? You identify trees that might need to be removed anyway, that have any disease or damage or are already dead, and look at the others in context. Is there a particularly nice or desirable tree species in good condition? If you see that, you say, let’s work around that tree.” At Cooper Creek, they recommended removing an old ash tree and planting new trees to provide shade and comfort to the
new playground. When that ash tree came down, it could have been trucked off to the dump. Instead, it will become something totally new. “Dorothy messaged me and said, ‘These trees are coming down, do you want them?’ I said sure, and she put me in touch with the leader of the crew taking them down, and I went out there and checked on them and he cut them all up,” Schley said. “It’s thousands of pounds. Each stump is 200 to 300 pounds and I have nine of them in my workshop now.” Schley said he had never made a guitar out of ash before, but pointed out
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that the legendary guitar-maker Fender has used ash to create the bodies of its guitars before.
kicked off. Anywhere you have a project going on that’s going to impact trees in any way, call us and we can help,” she said. “We can create a safer park, a park that has trees in the right places, that are providing shade for people using the parks.” She said they were working on ideas for how other people could collect salvaged wood too. “We know it can be done, but we have to make it a little systematic. I’d love to see more of that wood salvaged, or a formal partnership on some of these projects, we could use some of these creative solutions.”u
JUNE 2020
