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From a tiny acorn to a mighty oak

Fallen leaves are a great item to use as mulch in your flower gardens. Not only do leaves breakdown into nice crumbly piles of rich compost, sometimes you can get an added surprise in the form of seedlings.   Depending on where you get your raked leaves – from your own backyard or your neighbor’s – seedpods are inevitable.

 

Mature red oak
Oaks are one of my favorite trees and I am always thrilled to have a new generation of trees taking root in my one-acre garden. With the success of spontaneous oak trees, last fall I made the decision to try and save the legacy of a damaged oak before it is completely destroyed by a housing development.

Three years ago, a tornado tore through the tiny town of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. One of the areas hit was a section of town near the community park. In a vacant field near the park, several very old oak trees were uprooted and beat into mangled masses of bark and branches. Although saddened at the loss of homes and other property from this twister, the damage to 100-year-old oak trees was heavy on my heart.

In fear the oaks would be totally removed from the housing development, that fall I went to the construction site and waded through knee-high weeds to reach the oak trees. There underneath the mangled tree branches, I found hundreds of tiny acorns. The growing season had been dry and hot, so many of the acorns had already lost the life-sustaining moisture needed to help the seedling spring forth, but I managed to collect a few to bring home.

I planted these tiny acorns in a small nursery bed and kept them moist until germination. I babied these tiny seedlings all through the winter and spring, determined they would survive. Ten months after planting the acorns, the tiny oak seedlings are still only a few inches tall, but they are strong and sturdy.  They are now ready to be moved into permanent locations throughout the garden and I have confidence they will grow and mature into mighty oaks. Granted, I may not live to see their maturity, but my children and grandchildren will know how much I loved these majestic trees.