Presbyterian Village Austell Campus Conservation

A retired Naval chaplain with the rank of Commander and a former Methodist minister, Reverend Virgil Sexton and his wife, Katy, moved to Presbyterian Village in Austell, Georgia, a retirement community of 60 acres, in February of 1997. Their home at 1960 Overbrooke Way backs up to a thick second-growth forest. As an Eagle Scout and dedicated outdoorsman, Virgil must have been beckoned to the wooded hillside and to the creek below.

Sometime thereafter, Virgil and another resident, Bill Boyd, together with Dr. Frank McElroy, Jr., explored the possibility of a path through the woods with entrances off Overbrooke Way and, at the lower end, off Champion Drive. Approval was given and soon members of the Landscape Committee, under Virgil’s inspiration and active leadership, began to create a nature trail. In addition to Village residents, Boy Scouts seeking Eagle Rank helped with the creation of the trail. One Scout chose to design and build a bridge across South Creek. The bridge carried many across the creek from early 2007 until 2022 when it was replaced. Girl Scouts seeking the Silver Award carried out trail cleanup and planting projects. The 13-year-old grandnephew of Susan Daugherty, Forrest Daugherty, built a forge and created a rebar fishing boy to sit on a stump beside the creek. The fish at the end of his line has escaped more than once. The rebar boy was Virgil’s idea.

The lower trail was cut wide enough in places to walk side by side. There are a few small benches on which to rest, meditate, observe and listen to birds. Trees native to the area are marked. Virgil envisioned native azaleas, mountain laurel, galax and other plants natural to the woods. “No city plants,” he often said. The path from the bridge curves and starts up a rather steeply graded hill. Four-foot-wide steps were built into the hill to afford two people the chance to look around at the woods and to make the ascent more accessible. A strong hemp rope, strung between trees and 4×4 posts, is used to help hike up and down that portion of the trail.

At the top of the hill you see the backs of the houses on Overbrooke Way. At that site, Virgil planned a resting place in a small clearing with a wrought iron table and chairs. A brick bench dug into the bank of the hill was also constructed. The Village celebrated Virgil’s 90th birthday at this spot on May 31, 2008.

From the resting place the path levels and heads west. It goes past the upper entrance, an entrance that adjoins property that was formerly Virgil’s back yard. A narrower path leads across a bridge from which one can look down to the lower part of the trail and see the creek and the backs of homes which face South Creek Drive. Just a few feet further on you walk out of the forest and into an open area with a gazebo.

As the trail was nearing completion, Virgil, Bill and several others went to a “close out” Home Depot sale on South Cobb Drive and returned home with the wrought-iron table and chairs for the resting place and the gazebo. Arrangements were made for leveling the ground and setting the gazebo in place. This is a perfect spot from which to view the campus and may be the best place on this property to sit and watch the sunset.

The lower trail entrance at Champion Drive is marked by an arbor over which grows Carolina Jessamine. One walks through a small garden of native azaleas, oakleaf hydrangeas and drifts of Lenten roses. A bench is nearby. Within reach is a small wooden box with a map containing an illustrated outline of the trail together with identifying notes on particular trees. That box and two others like it were rebuilt by Dr. Gene Harley in 2022-23 for placement at each entrance to the trail.

Recently, an extension of Virgil’s Trail was envisioned and begun by Charlie and Mary Scott, who live at the top end of South Creek Drive. During COVID-19, they worked to build a bridge over South Creek together with several lovely spots to rest and read by the creek. The extension begins with a rather steep descent to the creek from their backyard, crosses the creek and ambles alongside the creek to just south of the original bridge, and connects there with Virgil’s Trail. That portion of the Trail was formally designated as the Scott Extension of Virgil’s Trail in December, 2022, by the Landscape Committee.

In December of 2021, Virgil’s nephew Peter Cobb and his wife, Carolyn, moved to Presbyterian Village. Peter recognized that Virgil’s Trail needed attention and worked with the Landscape Committee to lovingly improve and revitalize the work begun by his uncle and others. In 2022, the Landscape Committee authorized and financed new signage along the trail. This signage includes QR codes which can be accessed both by new maps of the trail and through plaques identifying 22 trees, 17 of which are different species. These plaques and maps, which allow “virtual tours” of Virgil’s Trail, were completed and installed in the spring of 2023.

Common Names: Tulip poplar, tulip tree, yellow poplar
Family: Magnoliaceae
Height: 60 to 90 feet
Spread: 30 to 50 feet
Bloom Time: May to June, Bloom Description: Yellow
Attracts: Birds, Hummingbirds

Notable Characteristics: is a large, stately, deciduous tree of eastern North America that typically grows 60-90′ (less frequently to 150’) tall with a pyramidal to broad conical habit. Wood is used inter alia for furniture, plywood, boatbuilding, paper pulp and general lumber. Native Americans made dugout canoes from tulip tree trunks. This is the state tree of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana.

Common Name: Black cherry
Family: Rosaceae
Height: 50 to 80 feet
Spread: 30 to 60 feet
Bloom Time: April to May, Bloom Description: White
Attracts: Birds

Notable Characteristics: Native to eastern North America, Mexico, and Central America. Fruits are bitter and inedible fresh off the tree but can be used to make jams and jellies. Fruits have also been used to flavor certain liquors such as brandy and whiskey. Fruits are attractive to wildlife. Native Americans prepared decoctions of the inner bark for cough medicines and tea-like cold remedies. Hard, reddish-brown wood takes a fine polish and is commercially valued for use in many products such as furniture, veneers, cabinets, interior paneling, gun stocks, instrument/tool handles and musical instruments.

Common Name: American Elm
Family: Ulmaceae
Height: 60 to 80 feet
Spread: 40 to 70 feet
Bloom Time: March to April, Bloom Description: Red-green

Notable Characteristics: Medium to large deciduous tree with a vase-shaped, broad-rounded crown. The fruit is rounded flat, papery, wafer-like samaras that ripen in the Spring. The bark is dark, ashy gray, flat-topped ridges separated by diamond-shaped fissures. It is native to eastern and central North America. Although once widely planted as a street and lawn tree, American elm populations have been so decimated by Dutch elm disease that this tree is no longer considered to be a viable selection for landscape uses.

Common Name: Sweetgum
Family: Altingiaceae
Height: 60 to 80 feet
Spread: 40-60 feet
Bloom Time: April-May, Bloom Description: Yellow-green

Notable Characteristics: Female flowers give way to the infamous gum balls which are hard, spherical, bristly fruiting clusters. Gum balls mature to dark brown and usually remain on the tree through the winter but can create clean-up problems during the general period of December through April as the clusters fall to the ground. Tree wood has been widely used for a number of applications including flooring, furniture and home interiors. The gum obtained from genus plants has been used in the past for a variety of purposes, including chewing gum, incense, perfumes, folk medicines, and flavorings.

Common Name: Flowering Dogwood
Family: Cornaceae
Height: 15 to 30 feet
Spread: 15 to 30 feet
Bloom Time: April to May, Bloom Description: White (bracts)
Attracts: Birds, butterflies

Notable Characteristics: Blooms in early spring and typically overlaps the bloom period of redbuds. The true dogwood flowers are tiny, yellowish green and insignificant, being compacted into button-like clusters. However, each flower cluster is surrounded by four showy, white, petal-like bracts which open flat, giving the appearance of a single, 4-petaled, white flower. Oval, dark green leaves (3-6” long) turn attractive shades of red in fall. Bright red fruits are bitter and inedible to humans, but are loved by birds. Fruits mature in late summer to early fall and may persist until late in the year.

Common Name: Loblolly Pine
Family: Pineaceae
Height: 40 to 90 feet
Spread: 20 to 40 feet
Bloom Time: Non-flowering

Notable Characteristics: Native from southern New Jersey to Florida and west to eastern Texas. This tree is particularly noted for its straight trunk. It loses its lower branches as it matures, gradually developing a dense oval-rounded crown. Scaly gray bark develops furrows with age. This is an important timber tree whose wood is used for pulp, plywood and general construction.

Common Name: Hazel Alder
Family: Betulaceae
Height: 10 to 20 feet
Spread: 8 to 15 feet
Bloom Time: March- April, Bloom Description: Brownish yellow (male) and red (female)

Notable Characteristics: A multi-stemmed, suckering, thicket-forming, large deciduous shrub or small tree that typically grows to 10-20’ tall. It is most often seen in a multi-trunked form with a densely branched crown. It is native to boggy ground along streams/lakes/rivers, wetland margins, springs, spring-fed meadows, ditches, and swampy fields from Nova Scotia to Illinois and Missouri south to eastern Texas and northern Florida.

Common Name: White Mulberry
Family: Moraceae
Height: 30 to 50 feet
Spread: 30 to 50 feet
Bloom Time: March- April, Bloom Description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Native to China, the leaves of this tree have been used in China since at least 2600 B.C. as the primary diet for silkworms used to make silk. Trees were introduced into North America in colonial times in an effort to establish a silk industry. Although the industry never took hold, the trees did take hold and have over time escaped cultivation and naturalized in fields, waste areas, forest margins and along roads throughout much of the U.S. This tree has also been planted in various areas for erosion control and windbreaks.

Common Name: Black Willow
Family: Salicaceae
Height: 30 to 60 feet
Spread: 30 to 60 feet
Bloom Time: March- April, Bloom Description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: It is native to moist to wet soils of floodplains, stream/riverbanks, swamps, marshes, sloughs, and ponds in the U. S. from Maine to Minnesota south to Colorado, Texas and Florida and in Canada from New Brunswick to Manitoba. Planted in the right location, its shallow roots can act as a quality soil binder, providing excellent erosion control.

Common Name: Red Maple
Family: Aceraceae
Height: 40 to 70 feet
Spread: 30 to 50 feet
Bloom time: March- April, Bloom description: Red, sometimes yellow

Notable Characteristics: Is native to Eastern North America from Quebec to Minnesota south to Florida and eastern Texas. Emerging new growth, leaves, leafstalks, twigs, flowers, fruit and fall color are red or tinged with red. Quality of red fall color on species plants is variable. Flowers are small but attractive and hang in clusters that usually appear before the leaves. The bark on young trees is smooth and grey and as the tree matures it becomes darker and breaks up into long scaly plates.

Common Name: Silverbell
Family: Styracaceae
Height: 30 to 40 feet
Spread: 20 to 30 feet
Bloom time: April, Bloom description: White

Notable Characteristics: Is native to the Piedmont and southern Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States. It is typically found growing on lower mountain slopes, bluffs, and stream banks in rich, mesic soil. The flower is a very showy white, 4-petaled, bell-shaped on long stalks that are usually in clusters. The fruit is a dry, 4-winged corky drupe. The bark is red-brown with white stripes, forming a rough diamond-shape pattern with young; older trees develop ridges and furrows.

Common Name: Southern Magnolia
Family: Magnoliaceae
Height: 60 to 80 feet
Spread: 30 to 50 feet
Bloom time: May- June, Bloom description: White

Notable Characteristics: It is native to moist wooded areas in the southeastern United States from North Carolina to Florida and Texas. Flowers bloom in late spring, with sparse continued flowering throughout the summer. Flowers give way to spherical cone-like fruiting clusters (to 3-5” long) that mature in late summer to early fall, releasing individual rose-red coated seeds suspended on slender threads at maturity.

Common Name: Northern Red Oak
Family: Fagaceae
Height: 50 to 75 feet
Spread: 50 to 75 feet
Bloom time: May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Typically grows at a moderate-to-fast rate to a height of 50-75′ (often larger in the wild). Dark, lustrous green leaves and toothed lobes which are sharply pointed at the tips. Leaves turn brownish-red in autumn. An abundant crop of acorns may not occur before this tree reaches 40 years old. Young bark is smooth and older bark develops wide, flat-topped ridges and shallow furrows. The shallow furrows form a pattern resembling ski tracts.

Common Name: Shagbark Hickory
Family: Juglandaceae
Height: 50 to 80 feet
Spread: 25 to 40 feet
Bloom time: April-May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Native from Quebec to Minnesota south to Georgia and Texas. This tree has pinnate compound leaves, each leaf typically having 5 finely-toothed leaflets. Leaves turn yellow to golden brown in fall. The bark of young trees is gray and smooth but exfoliates in long strips with age. Nuts were an important food source to Native Americans and early settlers and are commercially sold today. Nuts are attractive to a variety of wildlife.

Hickory wood is often used to cure and to smoke meats. It is also an excellent wood for firewood. The wood is extremely hard and is used to make a variety of products including tool handles, ladders, gun stocks and furniture. Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the U.S., was affectionately known as Old Hickory in recognition of his tough character.

Common Name: River birch
Family: Betulaceae
Height: 40 to 70 feet
Spread: 40 to 60 feet
Bloom time: April to May, Bloom description: Brown (male), Green (female)

Notable Characteristics: Medium sized tree that usually divides low into multiple trunks. Salmon-pink to reddish brown bark exfoliates to reveal lighter inner bark. Leathery, diamond-shaped, medium to dark green leaves (1.5-3.5″ long) with doubly toothed margins turn yellow in fall.

Common Name: Sourwood
Family: Ericaceae
Height: 20 to 50 feet
Spread: 10 to 25 feet
Bloom time: June- July, Bloom description: White

Notable Characteristics: Native to the eastern United States from Pennsylvania south to Florida and Louisiana. It is perhaps most commonly found on rocky wooded slopes in the Appalachian Mountains, often growing in combination with other heath family members (e.g., azaleas and rhododendrons) that share the same acidic soil preferences. Gray bark on mature trees is fissured, ridged and scaly. Leaves have a sour taste, hence the common name. Leaves produce consistently excellent fall color, typically turning crimson red. Flowers are quite attractive to bees. Sourwood honey is a highly prized local product.

Common Name: American Beech
Family: Fagaceae
Height: 50 to 80 feet
Spread: 40 to 80 feet
Bloom time: April-May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: A medium to large tree up to 100 feet tall with a rounded crown. Trunks have distinctive thin, smooth, gray bark. Foliage turns golden bronze in fall. Beechnuts ripen in fall and are edible. The nuts are found in pairs within a woody husk covered with spines.

Common Name: Mockernut Hickory
Family: Juglandaceae
Height: 50 to 80 feet
Spread: 25 to 40 feet
Bloom time: April-May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Native throughout the eastern and central U.S and grows primarily on hillsides and ridges in somewhat dry soils. This tree has compound, dark yellowish-green leaves that have 5-7 toothed leaflets. Leaflets are aromatic when cut or bruised. Leaves turn an attractive yellow in fall. Thin dark gray bark develops furrows and flattened ridging as it matures. Female flowers give way to fruits (rounded nuts), but only after the tree reaches about 25 years old. Nuts are edible for humans but can be very difficult to extract from the husks, hence the common name of mockernut. Nuts are eaten mostly by a variety of mammals.

Common Name: Northern Red Oak
Family: Fagaceae
Height: 50 to 75 feet
Spread: 50 to 75 feet
Bloom time: May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Typically grows at a moderate-to-fast rate to a height of 50-75′ (often larger in the wild). Dark, lustrous green leaves and toothed lobes which are sharply pointed at the tips. Leaves turn brownish-red in autumn. An abundant crop of acorns may not occur before this tree reaches 40 years old. Young bark is smooth and older bark develops wide, flat-topped ridges and shallow furrows. The shallow furrows form a pattern resembling ski tracts.

Common Name: White Oak
Family: Fagaceae
Height: 50 to 80 feet
Spread: 50 to 80 feet
Bloom time: May, Bloom description: Yellowish-green

Notable Characteristics: Has variable fall color ranges from uninteresting browns to quality shades of dark red. White oak grows over much of eastern North America and is an important hardwood timber tree. Widely used in landscapes, but slow growth rate and large size has somewhat tempered its popularity.

Common Name: Sweetgum
Family: Altingiaceae
Height: 60 to 80 feet
Spread: 40-60 feet
Bloom Time: April-May, Bloom Description: Yellow-green

Notable Characteristics: Female flowers give way to the infamous gum balls which are hard, spherical, bristly fruiting clusters to 1.5” diameter. Gum balls mature to dark brown and usually remain on the tree through the winter but can create clean-up problems during the general period of December through April as the clusters fall to the ground. Tree wood has been widely used for several applications including flooring, furniture and home interiors. The gum obtained from genus plants has been used in the past for a variety of purposes, including chewing gum, incense, perfumes, folk medicines, and flavorings.

Common Name: Blackgum
Family: Nyssaceae
Height: 30 to 50 feet
Spread: 20 to 30 feet
Bloom Time: May to June, Bloom Description: Greenish white
Attracts: Birds, Bees

Notable Characteristics: Is primarily a lowland tree found in low wet woods, bottomlands and pond peripheries, but also can be found on dry rocky wooded slopes and ravines. Although flowers are not showy, they are an excellent nectar source for bees. Separate male and female trees (dioecious) so female trees need a male pollinator to set fruit. Fruits mature to a dark blue and are attractive to birds and wildlife. Spectacular scarlet fall color.