Nearly 700 acres of virtually untouched hill country in south Orange County presented a true opportunity for the Dove Canyon Company to recycle beautiful, natural, California oaks?EUR??,,????'??+some as high as 40 feet with up to 300 years of growth?EUR??,,????'??+to work into the master plan.

Their resort and residential development will open in early 1988 with 1300 executive home sites, a world class golf course developed by Jack Nicklaus and the recreational amenities to go with it.

Dove Canyon’s President, Garth Chambers and Vice President and Project Manager, Ivan Simovich retained Kawasaki, Theilacker & Associates of San Diego to do the initial tree survey and planning for the project. Final landscape drawings were provided by Land Concern of Santa Ana. Crowl Nurseries of East Irvine was engaged to begin the monumental task of preparing nearly 150 giant oaks for relocation, in sizes of 7 to 16 foot boxes.

Crowl Nurseries’ Dan Kaplanek is an expert at boxing and moving large specimen trees. The travel-sensitive oaks were side boxed and left to adapt for 6 months before transporting to a holding yard where they will be held until grading is completed.

“In recent years developers and Landscape Architects have increasingly called for large, mature specimen trees as focal points in the overall design of their projects. It’s a requirement we’ve been satisfying for some time now. Dove Canyon was a challenge, but we had no problem bringing it in on time, and on budget,” said Dan Kaplanek.