Let us dedicate a Chestnut Tree for you in the Mountains of North Carolina. A personalized card will announce your gift of Chestnut Tree planted in honor of someone you love.

American Chestnut trees once graced the Appalachian Mountain landscape, providing an abundant source of food for people and wildlife. 

With 300 chestnuts and counting, we have one of the largest private plantings of timber-type hybrid chestnuts in the Southeast. For a contribution of just ten dollars or more,  you can become part of this exciting Chestnut Tree restoration project located within on a 48 acre nature sanctuary in Western North Carolina, very close to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

We propose that you collaborate with us by supporting Eartheart Center's Memorial Forest of  timber-type American-Asian and American-European Chestnut trees.

 Please sponsor this effort by dedicating the gift of a Chestnut Tree in your friend or family member's honor, as part of a reforestation program in a lovely mountain Sanctuary.
A Living Dedication Forest 
You may choose to have your beautiful Chestnut Tree planted and dedicated to a loved one or a pet by purchasing an Honorary, a Birthday, or a Holiday gift on their behalf, or you may choose to have some saplings planted on your own behalf. Just order a personalized greeting card announcing your gift, and an American hybrid timber-type chestnut sapling will be dedicated just as you choose.

A Memorial Grove 
is also part of our Chestnut restoration & reforestation forest.  In the wake of a loved one’s passing, we can sow seeds of renewed life by dedicating a beautiful hybrid Chestnut Tree just for them. You may also vist this unique grove in remembrance of them.


A donation of $10 or more will provide for the care of one timber type hybrid American-Asian or American/European chestnut tree sapling, plus a personalized gift card to commemorate your dedication. 

Please contact Caroline Carr-Starr if you would like to become part of this inspired project by emailing ccarrstarr@gmail.com to place your order. 

 Eartheart Center of AIWP is a not-for-profit spiritual Nature Sanctuary 
visit http://ccarrstarr.blogspot.com/





To date in the United States, although there are a few surviving American Chestnut trees,  they rarely reach maturity before contracting Chestnut blight.  However, thanks to the long-term efforts of a nonprofit organization, The American Chestnut Foundation,  hybrid American-Chinese Chestnuts have been successfully developed from forbears of these magnificent trees. The development of blight-resistant American chestnut trees is being accomplished through "backcross breeding," which means that hybrids between American and Chinese chestnut trees are repeatedly crossed back onto purely American specimens, yielding offspring which then are inoculated with the blight and screened for resistance. Those showing the highest levels of resistance are again backcrossed onto the pure American species, and this process is repeated for several generations. 

 Here at Eartheart Center, we have already transplanted three hundred timber hybrids (Castenea hybrids) obtained from the chestnut tree nursery of Empire Chestnut Company of Ohio. Although not as pure as the American Chestnut Foundation's backcross specimens, these are seedlingtrees of hybrid ancestry, including Chinese, American, and European, with seed collected from highly selected, blight resistant, timber-type mother trees.  These trees will be enjoyed by generations to come.