The ‘mine’s bigger’ mentality of the rich now applies to trees

Billionaires famously spend their money on unrelatable extravagances: airplanes, superyachts, mansions and, occasionally, attempts at world domination. But the latest fashion in billionaire spending is one to cheer.

The New York Times recently reported that the “mine’s bigger” mentality of the billionaire class has now extended to trees. The ultra wealthy are paying upwards of $250,000 per tree to have enormous, old trees transplanted onto their properties for instant mature landscapes. 

The article includes an anecdote of two billionaires attempting to one-up each other in Newport, R.I., where Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and his nearby neighbor Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity company Blackstone, have added tree after towering tree to their historic mansion properties in what the Times described as a “landscaping duel.”

It is no surprise that Ellison would engage in a quest for the most mature landscape on his Beechwood property. This is the same man who built a 454-foot superyacht in 2004 that ended up being only the second largest in the world at the time. Imagine his disappointment.

Using mature trees in landscapes is not a new idea. During the creation of New York’s Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted insisted on transplanting mature elm trees in the late 1850s. The effort, however, was unsuccessful, as almost all the trees died and were replaced with younger ones.

Olmsted was undoubtedly inspired by famed British garden designer Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who often used mature trees in his designs for the very wealthy in the mid-18th century. Brown devised a cart to move trees up to about 35 feet horizontally. 

Today there are a handful of nurseries that specialize in mature trees, both for billionaire-style landscapes and to preserve important trees that need to be moved. 

The process of moving mature trees takes months and starts long before the truck shows up, with root and canopy pruning to reduce stress. Giant tree spades are often used for the removal, but very large trees are excavated mostly by hand. Root balls are wrapped in burlap and carefully trussed to resemble a drum.

The move is usually best done in autumn when the soil is warm but air temperatures have cooled, although evergreens are often better moved in spring. After careful placement and backfilling, the transplanted giants need temporary staking to hold them upright and lots of water. One imagines that people with the budget to buy these trees also have the wherewithal to pay someone to be in charge of watering.

Homeowners without trust funds can apply the same practices should they need to move more modestly sized mature trees and shrubs. And, lacking a chief waterer on staff, it might be worth setting up drip irrigation on a timer. 

Certainly billionaires’ wealth would be more altruistically spent ending world hunger or providing free education, but if they are going to engage in one-upmanship, better it be in the form of trees than airplanes.