If everything goes well, the cuttings made last week to a county champion dogwood in the woods next to Paint Branch High School will ensure the tree’s survival for future generations in the form of dozens of perfect genetic clones.
On Thursday, students from an environmental science summer program, with instruction from Paint Branch horticulture teacher Karen Sondak and Burtonsville resident Larry Silberman, used scissors and pruning shears to cut between 70 and 80 new branches sprouting from older ones on the 22-foot-tall dogwood tree.
Silberman helped launch the project last year when he learned the dogwood would be cut down to make way for construction of a new Paint Branch High School. Silberman would still like to see the tree moved to another spot on school property, and he’s been working with county officials to determine if that is possible.
In the meantime, the propagation project would ensure the tree lives on in some form at Paint Branch.
‘‘We’re trying to preserve the genetic material of the tree,” Sondak told the second of two groups that visited the tree Thursday. ‘‘In 75 years, [the cuttings] will hopefully look like [the existing tree], because they are clones.”
Each cutting, about 8 to 10 inches long, straight as possible and with some leaves, was placed in a plastic garbage bag and wrapped in a damp towel.
‘‘We want to save the tree,” said 13-year-old Joyce Campbell, a Burtonsville resident who will attend Paint Branch next year. She said she enjoys being involved with nature and getting outside. ‘‘My parents love gardening, so I guess I get it from them.”
Silver Spring resident Marlon Rosario, 13, who also will attend Paint Branch in the fall, likes the idea of working with classmates to save the tree.
‘‘It’s a good tree to play around and climb,” he said. ‘‘Paint Branch would need to take care of it.”
Silberman, who worked with Anne Monte, a volunteer with the Prince George’s County Master Gardener Program under the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension, then took the cuttings to Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, where gardeners began the propagation project.
Joe Kraut, a horticulturist at Brookside, said to ensure the cuttings grow roots, they are cut at a specific spot and then dipped in a rooting hormone before being placed in textured greenhouse rooting soil that allows optimal drainage.
The cuttings are then placed on a bench in the greenhouse where a timed mist machine will spray them 10 to 15 seconds every three minutes. Once roots develop, they will get mist for 10 seconds every six minutes. The misting rates can be adjusted depending on how well the plants are doing.
‘‘You’re dealing with an organic living thing. They’ll tell you what they want,” Kraut said.
After six weeks, the cuttings should produce roots, Kraut said. Then they will be transplanted from 1.5- to 3-inch pots at the end of the year. In their second year, they are transplanted to two-quart pots and eventually to two-gallon pots in the third year, he said. After the third year, they can be planted at Paint Branch or on other county school land.
‘‘Dogwoods can be tricky. You always take more cuttings than the target number of plants” to ensure survival, Kraut said.
In December, Silberman sought to get the tree special protection as the county champion through the Maryland Big Tree Program, which makes the determination based on measurements. The flowering dogwood was granted county champion status. But, despite the title, officials determined there was no cost-effective way of saving the tree. Silberman said moving the dogwood would have cost at least $25,000 in a process that would have involved digging a trench around the tree, stabilizing it with a steel support structure and lifting it with a crane.
Silberman was resigned to pursuing the propagation project as an alternative to a move that may or may not work. He enlisted John Peter Thompson, chairman of Behnke Nurseries Co. in Beltsville, who got him in contact with Frank Gouin, a plant physiologist and retired chairman of the horticulture department at the University of Maryland.
The two advised Silberman and worked with students from Sondak’s 11th-grade horticultural class in early spring.
But after seeing the dogwood later in the spring, Silberman elected to try once again to have the tree moved.
‘‘I decided to rally the troops,” said Silberman, who called Councilman Donald Praisner’s office to see if he could enlist his help in the effort.
Joy Nurmi, an aide to Praisner (D-Dist. 4) of Calverton, said the councilman’s office is checking to see if the move is financially feasible and physically possible.
‘‘We’re trying to work with Mr. Silberman to see if it’s possible to move the tree without killing it,” Nurmi said. If feasible, Nurmi said the councilman’s office would ask the public school system for help in paying for the move.
