Tree stories: A series. Mix together dedicated people, offbeat ideas, a pleasantly goofy host, and lots of greenery. The result airs on PBS this spring. (Perspectives).

It's 5:30 p.m., and Jeff Meyer, director of AMERICAN FORESTS' Historic Tree Nursery, has been standing in the blowing cold for hours as a crew films for his upcoming TV show. The light is fading, his opening lines are getting harder to repeat, and the construction lot at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, where our van is parked, has been locked up tight and deserted.

Finally, a good take. The cameraman dances for joy. German tourists watching nearby burst into spontaneous applause. And an assistant heads off to call the construction company and try to get the lot reopened so we can leave.

Welcome to the roving set of AMERICAN FORESTS' "Tree Stories," a weekly half-hour series debuting nationwide on public television the week of April 6 (check your local listings).

As the name implies, it is a half-hour that deals not so much with individual species as with the people and stories connected with them. The 43-year-old nurseryman has spent his life planting and caring for trees. He wants "Tree Stories" to show viewers not rote tree facts but the offbeat, joyous, beautiful, and yes, even strange, ways people appreciate what is an integral and often unnoticed part of everyday life: trees.

Meyer's own favorite tree is the "live oak, hands down. It's evergreen, it's spreading; they don't take a lot of work. It's everything a tree should be." It's also a tree that has a lot of significance for Meyer, who conceived the idea for the Historic Tree Nursery after his then-toddler son Forest picked up a seed from a local live oak, the historic Jacksonville Treaty Oak, and the Meyers planted it in their backyard.

But Meyer is a tree man--not a TV man--and he admits to learning a great deal with filming the 13 episodes of "Tree Stories."

MR. MEYER GOES TO WASHINGTON

Sometimes the stories going on behind the camera are as interesting as those in front of it. On this particular cold and windy October day, the tiny film crew was finishing up what had been a particularly difficult mission: Filming monuments and trees around Washington, DC, and interviewing some notable officials amid the maze of precautions and new regulations that took effect after September 11.

The tour of Washington's trees had taken Meyer and his small crew to the National Arboretum, the Botanic Garden, and the cherry trees along the Tidal Basin--but not onto the grounds of the White House. Despite its many historical tree plantings, the White House was understandably playing it safe and was not admitting visitors or film crews. We didn't dare go near there with camera equipment.

The day's shoot included the U.S. Capitol, and we arrived for a tour of the grounds' dozens of memorial tree plantings with landscape architect Matthew Evans. Bad timing. It was the same day the Capitol Police began closing down parts of the building to search for anthrax contamination.

Since we were outside, the police permitted us to stay but we never did see Evans, who spent the afternoon in an emergency meeting. As Capitol Police stood guard on the steps, around the grounds we went in the company of amiable grounds foreman Charles "Buck" Burton.

The grounds were eerily empty--hut great for clean shots--as we read the memorial plaques affixed to trees and marveled at the height and girth of some of the older specimens. We saw the Sullivan crabapples, planted in memory of five sons who perished together on the USS Juneau in November 1942. We watched a cadre of reporters gather beneath the massive so-called "Press Elm," a favorite backdrop for media when news occurs at the Capitol-as it did that day.

Finally, tired, hungry, and cold, we retrieved the van and headed back toward AMERICAN FORESTS' offices.

GENESIS OF AN IDEA

The idea for a half-hour show about trees came from American Public Television, based on the popularity of AMERICAN FORESTS' half-hour documentary, "Silent Witnesses," which recounted American history through the stories of trees associated with famous people and events. The documentary, which aired nationwide in 2000 and first introduced PBS audiences to Meyer, offered sweeping narrative, memorized dialogue, and a well-known narrator, actor James Whitmore.

But "Tree Stories" would have to be different. Meyer says he has neither a sizable budget nor the ability to memorize lines. What he does have is lots of knowledge about tree planting, a personable style, and what the producer calls a "likeable goofiness."

Imagine the guy next door riding in a bucket truck and collecting seed with Martha Stewart. Or watching nervously for bears as he negotiates wild berries on his way to see a champion redwood. The result is a half-hour that, while informative, is also funny, surprising, and sometimes even a little silly. That's OK, Meyer says, because there are lots of different ways people interact with trees.

Ask what he's learned over the past year and Meyer laughs softly. "It takes tremendously more work and time than I imagined to do 13 hour- hour shows."

Live and learn. In what they hope is the first of several years filming "Tree Stories," Meyer an producer Ellyne Lonergan traveled frequently, sometimes with additional crew members, often just the two of them, and always lugging heavy, bulky equipment.

Lonergan, a seasoned producer who served executive producer for "Silent Witnesses" for Jacksonvlile, Florida's WJCT and later went out on her own, says she was amazed to discover the passion people have for their trees and the lengths they will go to to protect them and tell stories about them.

She laughs now as she recalls a week spent in a mosquito-infested swamp and the trek through the berry bushes, where their guide insisted the "next big tree is just a tenth of a mile away"--for almost 2 miles.

EVERY TREE A STORY

In doing the premiere show, on Big Tree Hunters Meyer and Lonergan traveled to seven or eight states. With two days spent in each state and a couple of weeks added on at the end for editing the film down to less than 27 minutes, Meyer says, 'I'd never do it again like I did it the first year."

He says Lonergan has helped him learn a lot this year--how to interview people, how to make sure they look good on camera and are comfortable. The learning hasn't just been confined to the technical aspects of film-making, though. As the show travels around the country exploring different themes, Meyer learns right along with the viewers.

A show on wildfire, he says, taught him how changes in supposedly long-term forest policy have helped contribute to wildfire problems. For example, forests planted with thousands of trees per acre, with the idea that some would later be logged, became overcrowded fire hazards when the decision was made to cut fewer trees on national land.

And a policy of aggressively putting out all forest fires, implemented after the devastating fires of 1910, has led to massive fuel buildups, a deadly change from the time when forests periodically burned either from lightning strikes or human help. Those periodic, cleansing fires unlocked seed for fire-dependent species and cleared out brush and small trees.

Even the tree man has learned more about trees. A show with a fantasy theme takes viewers to an amusement park where the fun is in the trees. An upcoming show on tree houses has Meyer visiting elegant getaways--that just happen to be high up in the treetops.

Now that he's joining the ranks of TV show hosts, Meyer was asked which fellow host he'd like to take out with him on his tree jaunts.

"Not the guy from (public television's) 'This Old House,'" he jokes. "I wouldn't want him sawing on a tree.

"I'd like to take the guy from 'Crocodile Hunter,' go deep in a swamp in Louisiana, find some huge cypress, and he could jump on the back of a crocodile."

It would make for some interesting moments, and that's the kind of thing Meyer is hoping for. He's not above a little stunt work to get people enthusiastic about planting new trees and protecting and caring for the ones we already have. And just what do his sons, Forest, now 17, and Scott, 14. think of dad as a potential TV star?

"They think I'm nuts," Meyer admits.

It is a little nuts, this spending hours and days and weeks filming, then editing, then working with sponsors, and PR agencies, and closed captioning, all to wind up with less than 27 minutes of film. But it's infectious, and so Meyer is already dreaming big, of adding an international show each year and traveling to places like Russia and Costa Rica, seeing old-growth redwoods in Chile and the massive Tule Cypress in Mexico. And then, of course, there are all those people to meet, each one with a different tree story, each with a different way to appreciate trees.

"I liked 'em all. They were fun," he says of the first year. "We just had a great time doing it."

We all hope the run lasts for years.

Have an idea for Tree Stories? E-mail it to Jeff at [e-mail].

RELATED ARTICLE: COMING UP NEXT ON TREE STORIES...

Travel has taken "Tree Stories" host Jeff Meyer away from his wife and two sons more than he likes, but it's taken him to some great places. Here are some of his favorites and some of the things he remembers most.:

The most interesting place most people don't know about: Cat Island, Louisiana, home to an old-growth cypress swamp featuring hundreds of virgin baldcypress, including the national champion. At times during the year the land there is dry; other times, it's under 20 feet of water.

The best spot he'd never seen before: Old-growth in Willamette National Forest in Oregon. "I've seen old trees, but I've never seen old-growth" that looks like the trees that grow there. "Awesome. Unbelievable." It's also his choice for the place to take his family.

The most amazing tree he saw: A toss-up between the giant giant sequoia, the Boole Tree in Sequoia National Forest, and the National Champion Cat Island baldcypress in Louisiana. Both were unusually large, full of character, and hollow, which meant you could walk around inside them.

The most spectacular view: Sequoia National Forest, standing atop a mountain overlooking a valley: "You could see, basically, forever."

Time most unusual moment: Using the restroom at the U.S. Capitol-on the day they evacuated the building to check for anthrax spores.

Time most embarrassing moment: Being almost unable to make it to the site of the Boole Tree, that giant sequoia off the beaten path in California's Sequoia National Forest. So what's embarrassing about having a little difficulty hiking off-trail at a high altitude? Meyer was following 69-year-old Art Cowley, AMERICAN FORESTS' energetic volunteer Big Tree coordinator for the state of California. "I was almost ready to die," Meyer says now.--Michelle Robbins

Michelle Robbins is editor of American Forests.