An oak takes a long time to grow from a sprout to a tree. Or so we think. This morning I’m standing below oak trees that I either planted, or spared, when they were just seedlings.
We had been here a few years. Oaks fell in a storm, taking understory trees with them, and leaving a wide, sunny patch in the upper garden. The character of the garden had changed entirely, and eventually I took it in hand and planted the bones of what we have today.
Two little ‘live oaks’ arrived from the Arbor Day Foundation, and I planted them across from one another on either side of the new, gaping hole of a full sun in what had been a shade garden. Then the deer found them and grazed what little new growth they had. I planted deterrent plants and supports around one of them, which has stretched to at least three times my height. The other? Well, It is in a shadier place, without as much protection, and the deer still find it from time to time. It isn’t quite head high.
Oh, and those two ‘live oaks’ apparently weren’t. The still small one has the traditional strappy leaves of a Quercus virginiana. Live oaks are notoriously slow to grow. The other, now tall one? I’m still trying to figure it out. It is a semi-evergreen red oak, but not our Virginia live oak.
The sapling sprouted within the drip line of our remaining double trunked swamp chestnut oak, Quercus michauxii. I was curious about it, and just thrilled to have it after losing so many other trees. I procrastinated on moving it, left it be, and now it stretches to nearly 30 feet tall in not quite 10 years. And curiously, it’s a different oak species altogether. It must have blown in on the wind, or come with a squirrel or a blue jay to rest among the roots of the huge mother tree that now dominates that part of our yard.
Read the rest of this post, and view more photos on my new website, Our Forest Garden
Forest Garden 