ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180013
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
NOT exactly a takeover.
But maybe it's the ultimate two-for-one sale.
Whatever it is, everybody says it's unusual.
A bit spooky even, like a horticultural Jekyll and Hyde, with both personalities showing at the same time.
This unusual thing is a tree - or two - in the front yard of Karen and Cecil Whitt at 1452 Buena Vista Blvd. S.E.
At first glance, it appears to be two evergreens growing close together - so close that their branches seem to be intertwined. But when the lower branches are parted, there appears to be only one trunk.
The two sets of foliage are noticeably different. One has short needles, the other long.
"It sure is a funny tree," said Cecil Whitt, Karen's husband.
Karen Whitt agrees.
"I've never seen anything like it," she said.
It is so unusual that passers-by have stopped to ask what kind of tree it is.
Cecil Whitt Jr., the Whitts' son, said one man who said he was a landscaper told him the tree might be worth a lot of money.
To the untrained eye, the tree seems like some sort of science fiction-type horticultural mixture that has produced a ... a what?
An all-consuming monster tree that will take over the landscape?
Or a love tree producing a potion that will end all troubles?
But reality eventually set in and - Enter Marilyn Arbogast, city horticulturist for Roanoke.
A quick inspection, and she ends all speculation.
No monster tree. No love potions.
"Somebody has been playing around with grafting," she said matter-of-factly.
She identified the two sets of needles as blue spruce and dwarf Alberta spruce.
A close inspection of the trunk, Arbogast said, reveals a thin line where the grafting took place.
This is a horticultural takeover in process, she said, because the larger, faster-growing blue spruce will one day crowd out the dwarf Alberta.
Karen Whitt said the 2-foot-high seedling they bought about eight years ago was all small-needle - or dwarf Alberta - in the beginning.
The larger needles appeared about four years later, Cecil Whitt said, and have increased each year since then. Now the tree, almost 7 feet tall, is about two-thirds blue spruce.
Arbogast speculated that when the two trees were being grown from seed in a nursery, one of the workers tried to graft seedlings of the two types of spruce.
It probably appeared that the graft did not take, she said, and when it seemed that only one seedling had lived, it was set out to mature.
At that time, Arbogast said, it probably appeared that only the Alberta seedling was still alive.
But the life and spirit of the blue was still there - possibly dormant, but waiting for the right moment.
The Alberta thrived, she speculated, and eventually reached the old Lowe's store on U.S. 460, where the Whitt family bought it.
The tree is attracting so much attention, Karen Whitt said, she worries that something might happen to it. She is keeping closer watch on it.
"I'm thinking of leaving the front porch light on," she said, so the tree will be illuminated at night.
In any event, she apparently believes the tree has a destiny.
"Maybe one day it will appear in the White House," she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. Karen and Cecil Whitt and son Cecilby CNB(left) of 1452 Buena Vista Blvd. S.E. in Roanoke have what appears
to be two trees, but actually is one. color.