Feb. 18, 2013. When construction of a streamline providing service to the addition to Plemmons Student Union encroached on a 20-plus-year-old Japanese maple, Landscape Services workers hand dug the tree, wrapped the tree ball in protective burlap and replanted it near The Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts, formerly known as Farthing Auditorium.
Jim Bryan, landscape services supervisor, planted the tree as a sapling when he started work at the university. It’s one of several Japanese maples that have been relocated over the years. “They are slow growing. That’s the reason we selected them for locations where they normally wouldn’t outgrow their space,” Bryan explained. The other two trees were relocated from their Chapell Wilson Hall location to Durham Park when the Child Development Center was relocated from between L.S. Dougherty and Sanford halls to mobile units beside Chapell Wilson Hall.
Bryan said the cost to purchase a tree today of similar age and size as the one moved to the Schaefer Center would be an estimated $4,500 to $5,000.
When rust claimed the cab of a truck used by the university’s masons, employees in the Motor Pool found a replacement cab, painted it, added to the original truck’s chassis and saved the university the $35,000 to $40,000 that a new truck would have cost. The 2001 model with 30,000 miles should provide another 10 years of service to the Motor Pool.
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