Acer saccharum 'Green Mountain' - Sugar Maple 'Green Mountain'

The sponsor tree is a gift from these children to their parents. The three daughters, including a graphic designer, an art historian and a forester, want to express their gratitude. It is certain today that the extended family's next excursion will be to Weihenstephan to look after the family tree. "A walk around the campus and a stop for refreshments will round off the day," says Christine Stettner. She also tells us that her father was a forester and had already been looking for alternatives to the native spruce a good 60 years ago. That her youngest daughter Vroni followed in her grandfather's footsteps makes her proud: she studied Engineering in Forestry at the HSWT - and "planted" the idea for the sponsor tree in the family. "I thought it would be nice to give our parents something that was also meaningful," she says. And with that, she especially inspired her father, Josef Stettner. Although he worked as a graduate engineer in communications engineering, he has discovered the forest for himself since his retirement. With a lot of love and passion, he now looks after the family forest, which he wants to convert step by step into a mixed forest. "For this, he has already attended some courses at the forestry school in Kelheim," Christine Stettner reports.

But this forest and the future of our Bavarian forests are not only close to Josef Stettner's heart. The whole family will follow with great interest what scientific knowledge the arboretum can provide. The retired couple, she is 68 and he 72, hope that with the 50 different trees in a relatively small area, a long-term field trial for climate-resistant and future-proof trees can start here. Together, the whole family has high hopes for research projects like this: "Because trees ensure our survival," says Christine Stettner.

Especially with their grandchildren in mind, the grandparents are thinking about renewable energies or innovative ways of recycling because the family knows that we have to conserve resources to protect our environment. We call the sustainability commitment of the Stettners and the families of their three daughters, Susanne, Heidi and Vroni, "generational" in the truest word sense: they live mindfulness like environmental protection and pass on their enthusiasm for nature. Their sponsor tree in the arboretum will already receive visits from three generations - and it will outlive them as living proof of deep gratitude and love.

Distribution: Eastern North America, highlands and valleys, fresh moist soils.

Size: 12 to 15 metres high, 8 to 9 metres wide

Leaves: deciduous, opposite, 3-5-lobed, 10 to 15 cm long, pointed, yellow-orange colour in autumn

Flower: yellowish, appears with foliage shoots