The question senior Sally Hayes asked of herself at the start of the school year was straightforward: Would it be possible for Loomis Chaffee to gain certification as a Level I Arboretum? The answer, she determined, was yes. 

The hours and hours of work began, and Sally was up to the challenge. On Friday, March 7, the start of spring break for students, a time of year when buds start to show on the trees that will soon lose their skeleton-like appearance, the official word came: Congratulations to the Loomis Chaffee Arboretum on your successful accreditation for Level I through the ArbNet Accreditation program.  

Sally has worked on the arboretum as a Guided Environmental Research Project (GERP), sponsored by the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies. She is one of four students involved in GERPs this year.  

“Sally’s efforts in advancing the arboretum initiative are truly exceptional,” said Jeff Dyreson, a science teacher and associate director of the Alvord Center. “Loomis has been contemplating the idea of creating an arboretum for years, and to witness a student bring this vision to life is nothing short of inspiring. Sally’s dedication and expertise have showcased the remarkable potential of students — demonstrating skills and knowledge typically seen only in seasoned professionals.” 

A tree is more than leaves and bark and branches to Sally. What species is it? How old is it? Maybe it’s on the Connecticut Notable Trees list, which for 40 years has collected information on the state’s most historic trees.   

Sally is accustomed to major projects. As a junior Sally completed a Norton Fellowship project that included working on an environmental program with young children at the Boys & Girls Club of America in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and participating in a farmer’s market and a STEM lab at a local museum. Sally also is pursuing a Global & Environmental Studies Certificate. Awarded at Commencement, the certificate recognizes coursework, co-curricular engagement, and experiential learning and teaches action-oriented skills. 

She started her quest for the arboretum accreditation by meeting with an ArbNet coordinator and working with various constituencies on campus. She needed to identify at least 25 species of trees, create a self-guided walking tour, prepare an educational event for Arbor Day, write a mission statement for the arboretum, and establish a governance plan to sustain the arboretum.   

Sally is planning a display in the Scanlan Campus Center that will promote the arboretum certification and include a “ghost tree” exhibit, which will provide information about some trees that are no longer on campus but are significant to the history of the land and school. She also is organizing an event during Community Time on Friday, April 25, to plant tree seedlings and celebrate Arbor Day. And she is working with the Strategic Communications & Marketing Office to create an online presence for the arboretum.   

In April 2011, the Morton Arboretum, based in Illinois, launched the ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation program and created the Morton Register of Arboreta — “a list and database of arboreta and other public gardens that have a substantial focus on woody plants.” Loomis Chaffee is now on that list. 

The school is located on more than 300 acres, but the 32 trees listed for accreditation can largely be found along what is called “the Loop,” an easy walking path around campus. Sally has mapped the trees using ArcGIS, software that views, edits, manages and analyzes geographic data.  The trees range from a Magnolia Cordata and a Weeping Katsura to the more familiar Red Maple and Blue Spruce. The list includes two on the Connecticut Notable Trees list: a Pecan Tree and an American Holly. There are four levels of certification. Level II, for instance, requires 100 or more trees to be identified. 

Sally spent four to six hours a week on the arboretum, and the project became a passion. “In the process of learning about the trees on campus, I became fond of these trees and cared about preserving them,” she said.   

The educational events she has planned will encourage the Loomis Chaffee community to learn more about the trees on campus and “encourage the school to prioritize this preservation,” she said.  

Sally’s passion for the trees on campus did not stop with the arboretum certification process. She branched out, so to speak, to create the ghost tree exhibit.   

“I gained inspiration for [the ghost tree] project from a conversation with Dr. Morrell [writing initiatives director John Morrell] and his teacher from his graduate program at Vanderbilt,” Sally said. “This teacher had given tours — what he called ‘ghost tree tours’ in October each year for Halloween. He talked about trees that were no longer alive but were once significant to the campus. I was interested in this concept and thought I could use it to teach the Loomis community about the history of tree life on campus while announcing the LC Arboretum.” 

Sally went to the Archives and, working with archivist and curator Karen Parsons, she identified four interesting trees that previously grew on campus. The ghost tree exhibit will tell the stories behind those trees. 

“For example,” Sally said, “the presentation about the Elm trees that previously lined the Senior Path will demonstrate the history of student engagement with Arbor Day and the impacts of Dutch Elm Disease on the Loomis Chaffee campus. The other trees selected for this project are the ‘Elephant Tree’ that was once outside of the Scanlan Center, the Willow trees that lined Island Road and admissions, and the two trees that stood outside one of the original Loomis houses where the library is today.” 

Sally said the ghost tree project extended her knowledge about “local tree diversity and landscape history as well as my understanding of past Loomis student engagement and traditions surrounding tree life.”  

 

The list of the 32 mapped trees:

Quercus coccinea: Scarlet Oak 

Quercus palustris 'pringreen:' Green Pillar Oak 

Cornus florida: Flowering Dogwood 

Betula pendula: White Birch 

Chamaecyparis pisifera: Sawara Cypress 

Cercis canadensis: Eastern Redbud 

Acer rubrum: Red Maple 

Magnolia acuminata: Magnolia Cordata 

Picea pungens: Blue Spruce 

Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Pendulum:' Weeping Katsura 

Acer platanoides: Norway Maple 

Quercus rubra: Red Oak 

Acer saccharum: Sugar Maple 

Ulmus pumila: Siberian Elm 

Chamaecyparis pisifera: Hinoki Cypress 

Betula nigra: River Birch 

Quercus palustris: Pin Oak 

Thuja: Arborvitae 

Lindera obtusiloba: Japanese Spicebush 

Acer Japonium acinitifolium: Full Moon Maple 

Cryptomeria japonica: Japanese Ceder 

European Larch (CT Notable) 

Carya illinoinensis: Pecan Tree (CT Notable) 

Picea abies: Norway Spruce 

Ulmus parvifolia: Lacebark Elm 

Malus sylvestris: Crabapple  

Acer saccharinum: Silver Maple 

Acer palmatum dissectum: Weeping Japanese Maple 

Oxydendrum arboreum: Oxydendrum  

Pieris japonica: Japanese Pieris 

Ilex opaca: American Holly (CT Notable) 

Gleditsia triacanthos: Honey Locust 

Trees marked as CT Notable are listed on the “Connecticut’s Notable Tree’s” page created by Connecticut College