Society of Tree-Lovers Sows Seeds of Ecology : Environment: Modern-day Johnny Appleseeds try to bolster shrinking plant and wildlife habitats.

They are modern-day Johnny Appleseeds, and their mission, they say, is the greening of Orange County.

They are members of the Tree Society. They plant trees in barren locations. They nurture existing trees. And they give free advice about what trees to plant and how to care for them.

“In addition to educating people about trees, we encourage people to plant trees,” says Jack Heninger, the group’s executive director. “In the early days of Orange County, it had a lot of oaks and sycamores. But many trees have been lost as the county became developed. We help people choose new trees to plant, and we help them take care of those trees.”

Urban development--the paving over of parts of Orange County--has dealt a serious blow to existing trees, according to society literature. “Shocking as it may sound,” reads one brochure, “native plant and wildlife habitat in Orange County is being lost at a rate comparable to that of tropical rain forest destruction. Planting trees and working to preserve existing natural habitats will protect bio-diversity and provide shelter for desirable forms of wildlife.”

The Tree Society was formed last fall and is headquartered in a small office in the Arboretum on the Cal State Fullerton campus. The organization has about 280 members, who pay $15 a year per family.

The society’s goal is to plant and protect 1 million high-quality trees “in safe locations in Orange County” by the year 2000, officials say. The safe locations include new parks needing better landscaping, barren areas around shopping malls and treeless areas around private homes.

The society also helps plant new trees in the Fullerton Arboretum, a 25-acre area dedicated to preserving a wide array of species.

The Tree Society holds free classes on the first three Saturdays of each month. All are at the Arboretum, on Yorba Linda Boulevard at Associated Road in Fullerton. Classes start at 9:30 a.m. and end at noon. Classes on the first Saturday of a month teach tree-planting skills; classes on second Saturdays cover pruning techniques; and third-Saturday classes focus on tree selection and siting.

The Tree Society is staffed entirely by volunteers like Heninger, a retired finance executive who lives in Fullerton. Another staffer is Alden Kelley of Fullerton; he has a private business as a professional tree-care consultant. Kelley is the society’s “answer man,” giving advice over the telephone to people who call with problems about their trees.

“I get questions ranging from what to do with leftover Christmas trees to how to propagate certain trees,” Kelley says.

“Basically, I’m a trouble-shooter for these people,” he adds. “Many times I can give help right away, because the symptoms the people describe with their trees are fairly common, and I can tell them what the symptoms indicate.

“For example, often people call me about their cypress trees, noting that some branches are turning brown and that there are little droplets of resin along the trunk. Those are the common signs of cypress canker, and, unfortunately, cypress canker is a fungus that is progressively killing many cypress trees. It can be held back for a while with fungicidal spraying, but the dead branches won’t come back.”

The Tree Society says that trees have an economic value beyond aesthetics.

“Properly siting and planting just three trees around your home can cut your air-conditioning bill by 20% or more,” says a Tree Society brochure. “There are over 1 million energy-efficient sites available around homes in Orange County. Planting trees in those sites could save consumers millions of dollars each year.”

Beyond those dollars and the beauty of nature, trees have an intangible quality that makes life more precious to many people, according to Kelley.

“For many people,” he says, “trees are their pets, their friends. They form strong attachments to their trees. Some people are hesitant to express their emotions when they talk about their trees, but when they open up and tell me their personal feelings, I understand them. Because I know that a tree can be a real part of a family.”