Big Tree Takes Trip

A centuries-old, 50-foot California live oak tree with a 65-foot branch span was moved Tuesday from its original site to a spot about a quarter of a mile away as part of a new housing development in El Toro.

“We’ve moved a lot of big trees but this is the largest one we’ve ever moved,” said Dan Kaplanek, president of La Cresta Nurseries of East Irvine, which moved the Quercus agrifolia, as it is known to botanists. The Kaplanek family has been in the tree-moving business for 40 years.

Kaplanek said he believes that the tree is 400 to 500 years old, which would make it one of the oldest live oaks in California.

The oak, with its root system, weighed 291 tons--far too much for any truck to hold, Kaplanek said. So his firm developed a method in which the tree was boxed, then raised onto a platform with its own motorized wheels. The platform essentially drove itself to the new location at what will become a corner of Portola and Alton parkways, the first intersection that will be built in the new development.

The move cost about $100,000.

Hon Development, which is building the 3,900-unit tract at Foothill Ranch, worked with the landscape architectural firm of Dike-Runa Inc. of Newport Beach in moving 600 to 700 live oaks and sycamores to open space areas designated within the project. The trees were preserved under an agreement with Orange County, which approved the project.