The University’s campus boasts many beautiful and historic features, but the Southern Live Oak trees have a rich history behind their beauty.
The live oaks are viewed as a symbol of the Deep South. Each year, tourists come from far and wide to visit Louisiana’s oaks at historic plantations such as Oak Alley and Rosedown. The “stately oaks” are part of the University’s history, embedded in the campus and the alma mater.
Working as the grounds and horticulture manager, as well as Assistant Director of Landscape Services, Fred Fellner is doing his part to maintain the “land” portion of the University’s Land, Sea and Space Grant status.
Fellner, who completed a doctorate of philosophy in urban forestry at Southern University and A&M College in 2011, has been taking care of the University’s vast population of live oaks for 23 years.
The LSU Foundation helps to provide the funds necessary for the upkeep of the oaks through the “Endow an Oak” program. Established in 1993, Endow an Oak helps to improve the well-being of more than 1,500 oak trees at the Univeristy.
Fellner said while the endowments help to take care of the oaks, there is room for improvement.
“I think [the endowments bring in] 30,000 to 35,000 dollars per year, and I can provide complete plant healthcare on one tree and it can be 10 percent of that,” Fellner said. “Lightning protection costs $1,000 per tree. So, typically we’re solving problems with it but it doesn’t go that far.”
Fellner said the endowments are gradually building each year, and hopes they can provide more assistance with the live oak protection in the future.
The oak endowment program boasts over 300 donors who endow their chosen live oak tree for business, families, alumni and even fallen University veterans. Memorial Oak Grove, found just south of the LSU Student Union, had 31 trees dedicated in 1926 to past University students who died during World War I. One of the trees is dedicated to “The Unknown,” which stands for all missing or unidentified fallen service members. The saplings were donated by Edward A. McIlhenny, a Baton Rouge native and well-known horticulturist.
These days, an endowment runs anywhere from $4,000 for campus oaks to $50,000 for oaks on the Quad. Fellner estimates there are around around 20 oaks on the LSU Parade Ground, which have all been endowed already. Each endowment is marked with a permanent bronze plaque near the base of the tree, and may be named for a donor or in memory of someone.
Another endowment was made by Bond Saunders Lux in honor of his parents, Violet and Turner Lux. Violet was a member of the first female members of Tiger Band in 1942, after World War II called many members overseas. She and her late husband both served during the war. She was a member of the Navy Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service, and he was deployed late in 1944 as a part of the Allied Forces push across France.
Bond Saunders Lux and his wife, Nita, endowed two oaks. One is now a sapling located just outside of Tiger Band Hall. Bond felt the oaks would be a great way to honor his parents while helping their beloved University. Violet told the LSU Foundation she remembers the “stately oaks” from her time at the University, although many of them had only just been planted.
“I can look at this oak and imagine it growing to be a grand, big tree inspiring those future generations of bandsmen,” Violet said to the Foundation.
In his doctoral dissertation, Fellner highlighted the work of the University’s first grounds caretaker: Ollie “Steele” Burden. Burden, who passed away in 1995 at the age of 95, was a self-taught landscape designer who contributed to the design of Baton Rouge’s Historic City-Brooks Community Park, and helped to establish the LSU Rural Life Museum. He began work at the University in 1930, and worked to line the campus’ streets with young live oaks until his retirement in 1977.
Among other things, Burden planted the trees behind the Greek Theater, known lovingly known as the “Enchanted Forest.” In a 1993 interview, Burden remembered what the area of campus used to look like.
“When sitting in the theater, you look down in the lagoon, a little reflecting pool, at the end of which is an enormous statue of [Hernando] de Soto,” Burden said. “The students had a way of writing graffiti all over the statue, so they destroyed the statue. They finally covered the lagoon over…I don’t know what it’s like today, the trees I [planted] must be enormous.”
Burden said he was given a “complete free hand” to work on whichever part of the University he saw fit. He moved from designing a garden for the building, now known as the LSU Faculty Club, to planting the now iconic oaks on the Parade Ground.
In his interview with Turner, Burden recalled his efforts to conceal Middleton Library from view of the Quad.
“Nothing could have been worse than to ruin that beautiful quadrangle and put the library in the middle of it. It needn’t have been done,” Burden said. “I spent the next few years trying to camouflage it.”
Burdens’ vision lives on through the new master plan for the University, which is expected to eliminate Middleton Library and cut down on the vehicular traffic through campus, something Burden was passionate about. Burden’s personal favorite oak on campus is located near the Cox Communications Center for Student-Athletes.
“I planted that tree, and can’t believe it,” Burden said. “The limbs come down to the ground … would have come from the woods probably.”
Before Burden began work, the University was relatively poor, with very little money allocated to landscaping on the campus, according to Fellner’s dissertation. Burden worked to design a landscape which would provide the University with the long-term benefits only a native stock can provide. Fellner said Burden “possessed an ‘aesthetic eye’” for landscaping and did not work on drawings of any kind.
“He could just see what something would look like in maturity,” Fellner said. “Although live oaks aren’t really ‘street trees’ … he said they’re the longest-lived tree in our area, they’re going to be the most disease-resistant, most reliable and most resistant to the effects of urbanization.”
Fellner said the landscapes Burden did were always built around the live oak tree or the magnolia tree. Around 1,200 of the original plantings that Burden did are still around, and Fellner said the University has since added hundreds more. These trees are in the juvenile stage, while the ones Burden planted are mature.
“There are a few trees, like the Bicentennial Oak, which was certified to be over 200 years old at the Bicentennial in 1976, that were a part of the original campus,” Fellner said. “When he came here, though, there was virtually nothing here.”
Burden’s designs worked to provide the campus with an ornamental landscape, which remains pleasing to the eye nearly 90 years after he began.
The live oaks he planted are under constant stress from urban development conditions — mainly lightning strike, construction, soil erosion, vehicle and industrial pollution and physical abuse. In 2008, two mature oaks were destroyed by the devastating winds of Hurricane Gustav.
The Landscape Services department performs a variety of plant health care techniques on the live oaks to protect them from biotic and abiotic factors and retain their longevity. Fellner said his team is mainly concerned with abiotic factors, such as water lines, steam lines, electrical lines and things of that nature.
“Trees have suffered and those that have suffered the most have suffered from those [abiotic factors] over time,” Fellner said. “You can look out and see the damage.”
One oak has already deteriorated past the point of Fellner’s ability to save it. Outside of the LSU Business Education Complex lies a dead live oak that Fellner said is scheduled to be removed.
“You can see the defoliation,” Fellner said. “Normally, it takes three to five years to see the full effect of root zone damage, and that can be from physical damage or changes in water, drainage, overburden or simply physical damage.”
The BEC oak began to degrade after changes in moisture retention in the soil, caused by the construction of the new BEC.
“[The damage started] particularly when construction began on Patrick [F.] Taylor Hall,” Fellner said. “I didn’t really see that one coming, but I believe that is what [the damage] was from. That whole area changed just enough.”
Former members of Tiger Band have been honored with several live oak endowments, including one for University alumna Kayleigh Billings, who passed away in 2015. Billings graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music education and music performance, dedicating her life to her love of music.
An endowment dedicated to Billings by her father’s company, Corning Inc., is located in the “Enchanted Forest,” and is often covered with flowers and tokens left by loved ones.
“[The live oaks] are iconic to the South,” Fellner said. “They’re so long-lived and their survivability is without question. I think that speaks to the nature of what we would like to think of the University being: stable, secure, stately as the alma mater says.”
