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Plant Life Valerie Easton

Reviving The Ancients

A pre-eminent doctor is saving heritage trees through the soil

OLAF RIBEIRO IS a man with a mission. "I can resurrect trees if given the chance," he says, working his magic by adjusting the micro-flora in the soil around tree roots. His passion for rescuing heritage trees stems from his conviction they can live forever: "If you don't believe me, look at the ancient pines in Australia that have been alive since the dinosaurs."

The Bainbridge Island plant pathologist has discovered an arboreal fountain of youth that he's applied to some of our state's most venerable trees. On the Capitol campus in Olympia, Ribeiro brought a magnificent Norway maple and a 200-year-old English oak, one of the oldest in the country, back to robust health. After treating senior trees in Winslow, he got a call from a grateful woman whose father had brought the sycamore, red oak and elm around the Cape from England's Kew Gardens. "Now they're my babies," says Ribeiro. "Monitoring them is my pet project."

Last October, Ribeiro was the subject of a long, flattering article in the Wall Street Journal, a publication that doesn't feature plant pathologists too often. Ribeiro has since received more than a hundred calls from around the country, imploring him to save beloved garden trees. He's so encouraged by that kind of tree worship that he's selling his plant lab to concentrate on tree doctoring.

"It's expensive to fly to West Palm Beach to save one fig tree, but this guy really wants me to come," says Ribeiro of an upcoming job. With cabling, labor and treatments, it costs an average of $8,000 to treat these aged giants, yet Ribeiro has no shortage of work. "Trees have great intrinsic value to a community. The British understand this," he explains.

How did a scientist who treats California citrus and sick rose bushes become the Dr. Doolittle of arboriculture? Three years ago Ribeiro shared his lab and work with British arborists visiting Seattle. "It blew their minds; they called me the missing link," Ribeiro says of the Brits' realization that to save trees they must look underground, not just up into the branches. Ribeiro was invited to England, where he tended the famed Doomsday oak at Ashton Court Estate, standing since the Middle Ages. British arborist Neville Fay coined the term "Phoenix trees" for these ancients brought back from the dead, and Ribeiro found a new profession.

If all this sounds a little — well, out there, 68-year-old Ribeiro comes by it honestly. Ribeiro was born and raised in Kenya, where his grandfather rode a zebra on his rounds as a physician and made the Guinness Book of World Records as the only man to ever truly tame one. "That's why I always wear this kind of hat," Ribeiro says, grinning and tugging on the brim of his safari-style headgear. A photo shows his grandfather wearing a similar hat, high collar and formal dark suit while astride the striped back of his favored mode of transport.

Bearded, gregarious and crackling with energy, Ribeiro is generous with his time and knowledge. A quart-sized Ziploc bag of soil and roots is all he needs to begin analyzing a tree's health. Far more trees are killed by kindness than neglect, and Ribeiro advises homeowners to shun most fertilizers and avoid altering the soil level around trees, which can smother them.

Common stress signs include lack of needle growth, bleeding along the tree trunk, a thinning canopy or an abundance of cones — ailing trees trying mightily to reproduce. Ribeiro's treatment involves mulches rich in microbial flora, and organic fertilizers only when needed. If a tree can't be saved, he advocates leaving a 10-to-15-foot snag. "Did you know there are 270 different life forms, from fungi to owls, on a single snag?" he enthuses.

Ribeiro also advocates what is called "geriatric forestry," believing it's worth the work and expense to save our older generations of trees. "It's a spiritual experience to stand under a tree that's been there for a thousand years," says the guy who doctors the Doomsday oak.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net. Ken Lambert is a Seattle Times staff photographer.

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