‘You plant a tree not for this generation, but for the next generation.’

The hill stuck in Scott Wilson’s consciousness for 35 years before he saw exactly what he had to do with it.

It was near his home in Eagle Rock and also near his work. Wilson was the horticulture teacher at Eagle Rock High School in the 1960s. The hill rose behind the school. He and his students climbed up its lower slopes to practice forestry. For the time, that was as high as his vision climbed.

He later transferred and finished his teaching career at North Hollywood High early in the 1980s. But he kept his home in Eagle Rock, just below the hill. And it stayed in his thoughts.

It is a thought-provoking hill. From a higher angle, say the view from the Ventura Freeway, it looks like the land the developers forgot. It stands roughly midway along the spine of rounded peaks running east and west between York and Colorado boulevards. The others are spotted with houses and old stands of domestic trees. But this one is covered only with grass.

Among the tallest, it could have given million-dollar views to half a dozen homes or more. But not a home has been built.

That wasn’t because of an oversight, though. Actually, the story goes back to a couple of developers who bought land in Eagle Rock in 1910 and gave 75 acres to Occidental to make the college the centerpiece of the community they were building. Over the years, Oxy extended its holdings up and over the hillside.

With no immediate plans for the land, the college left it fallow.

That was where things stood when Wilson attended a lecture by the TreePeople on campus in December. The TreePeople hoped to enlist Occidental students in the ranks of urban forestry. Unfortunately, since it was winter break, only two students showed up.

But the event crystallized his thinking on the hill.

“We sat and talked a little bit,” he said. “I said, ‘What about that area up behind?’ Well, they didn’t even know about it.”

Not coincidentally, Wilson had recently completed his second master’s degree, this one in landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona.

“The program is not where to put your petunias,” he said. Instead, “it’s soil, water, population pressures, team solving of problems, keeping open space, manipulating the system to preserve resources.”

His first application of the knowledge turned out to be a snap.

He phoned several Occidental officials. They saw no problem with planting trees on the hill. They also agreed to run an irrigation line part way up the slope.

One potential snag arose when Wilson compared notes with Oxy horticulture Prof. Jon Keeley, who turned out to be more of a purist than Wilson. Keeley wanted to plant things that were native to the area. Wilson was interested in exploring plants that could adapt, whether native or not.

They agreed that Wilson would plant two kinds of native oak on the south slope, facing Oxy, and then be more creative on the north slope near his old school.

The Los Angeles County forestry division donated about 200 coast live oak and Engelmann oak saplings for the first planting.

Wilson formed an organization called Northeast Trees, then started recruiting help.

“It just began to come together,” he said.

Oxy students, Eagle Rock students, city and county employees and neighborhood residents began signing up.

In his 67th year, Wilson saw all the threads of his life coming together. The volunteers included a Cal Poly Pomona horticulture student whose father had been in his first class at Eagle Rock High and Cal Poly Prof. Bob Perry. Wilson taught Perry at Eagle Rock, then became his student at Cal Poly.

The first planting began at 9 a.m. Saturday.

About 60 volunteers showed up, among them Wilson’s son and two grandchildren. There was a moment of fanfare with Occidental President John B. Slaughter and a couple of political aides, then the work began.

Spotters stuck tiny flags into the ground at intervals up and down the ridges. A forester from the TreePeople gave instruction in the method for planting. Teams bearing shovels, water buckets and saplings spread out along the slopes.

“It’s so exciting to be putting something in here that’s going to be here even after you’re gone,” said Freda Johnson, who also volunteers at the Lummis House in Highland Park, as she paused on her journey up the hill with a bucket of water. “These will last 100 years if somebody doesn’t bulldoze them down. And I’ll turn over in my grave if they do.”

The work went on past noon. Saturday, the group will be back to plant on the northern slope.

For the moment, what they have done doesn’t look that impressive. The tiny saplings remain almost invisible on the hillside. Wilson’s volunteers will have to water them faithfully for the next three years. Even then, the reward will be more spiritual than physical.

“You plant a tree not for this generation, but for the next generation,” Wilson said.

From where he stood, he’d be in shade 100 years from now.