Story by Stewart A. McFerran
COPEMISH – David Milarch, co-founder of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, has an opinion about the fires raging in the West.
“Number one, (they’re) raising awareness,” Milarch explained, especially among California residents who he said have taken their redwoods for granted, “in spite of the fact that 95% of the old growth (trees) have been cut down,” he said, adding, “There’s only 5% of the old growth left.”
Archangel has left its mark in the West. For instance, in Washington State the organization has planted trees in 37 cities in the Puget Sound area.
“In Oregon, we’ve planted for the 2021 World (Athletics Championships), he said. (The championships are postponed until 2022.) “They wanted 2,021 sequoias to offset the carbon of the additional people coming for the world games in Eugene.”
Archangel’s success in growing 120 different species of trees from some of the oldest and largest specimens in the world can be attributed to several factors.
First, Milarch said the organization is not taking genetic samples and freezing them. It is cloning ancient trees through propagation of root cuttings and growing the clones in its warehouse, raising them until they are saplings.
“We have living libraries,” he said, “…so it’s like building Noah’s Ark and bringing the trees on alive, two-by-two. We have 5,000-10,000 redwoods and sequoias and maybe 100 other species that are on a 20-acre parcel of land that is our living library in Copemish.”
Experience is another factor.
“I was born and raised in a family with four generations of shade tree producers,” Milarch said. “We’ve all grown shade trees commercially for cities and landscapers since sometime back in the 1940s.”
The organization also seeks the advice of scientists when questions arise.
“We have some of best scientific minds in the world on our science board that guide us,” he said, as well a network of scientists with whom they consult.
Finally, Archangel only ships its trees to “credible people that will take care of them,” who already have a two-year watering program in place.
“A lot of tree-planting groups don’t like their stats released,” he explained. “Ninety percent of the trees that are planted by tree-planting groups die.”
In his book about Milarch, “The Man Who Planted Trees,” New York Times columnist Jim Robbins included a chapter on black willows. Milarch said the tree species has fire remediation properties and other benefits.
by Jim Robbins
“All those years of spraying orchards, that spray went into the groundwater and it’s migrating toward the Grand Traverse Bay. Black willow is the only tree that pulls it out of the water and the soil and neutralizes it.”
Milarch said Robbins’ book footnotes “how toxic our groundwater is here.”
Each spring, Archangel gives away thousands of beneficial black willow seedlings it produces from the National Champion Tree found on the grounds of the former Traverse City State Psychiatric Hospital.
Park officials from the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore invited Milarch to give a presentation on the demise of the white cedar found in the “Valley of the Giants” on South Manitou Island. Recorded under the largest white cedar tree known in Michigan, his presentation was shown at the Park’s Visitors Center in Empire.
“There isn’t a species of tree right now in Northern Michigan that isn’t under attack,” Milarch said, adding, “We’ll be lucky to come out with anything short of a parking lot in twenty years.
“Climate change is real.”
