While ReLeaf Michigan’s 16th Biennial Big Tree Hunt, which ran through 2023 to August 2025, is now closed, one entry from Northport may just be the largest on record to date.
Heather and Greg Maier, owners of the historic Skye House and gardens in the heart of Northport, had volunteer verifier and Michigan Forest Association Outreach Forester Ellie Johnson stop by on Sept. 18 to measure the circumference of a towering Eastern Cottonwood tree in their yard. Tree size in the contest is determined by circumference, the measurement around the trunk, with Heather adding that it was exciting to hear that their tree came in larger than expected at 331.5 inches. The last Big Tree Hunt from 2020-2022 for largest tree in Michigan highlighted an Eastern Cottonwood from Monroe County that came in at around 301 inches, so the Maier’s entry would beat that record. Other entries from the state, of course, still need to be reviewed in the contest, but the Maier’s got word just last week that their tree is a winner. Now, they wait to see if they are the contest winner of the largest tree measured in the state.
“We’re very excited that Northport is in the running for the biggest tree, we have a very good shot,” Heather said. “We entered it because we have this enormous tree on the property and I wanted to support forestry. We’re conservationists and really want to plant a lot of trees on our property that serve as a pollinator corridor, and that serves for basically a wildlife corridor… We want to make the place beautiful for people to enjoy, but also to preserve its importance in the ecosystem, so we were taking a really good inventory of our trees and what we have on the property.”
