Why I Oughta...

Last Fall, I collected a few dozen acorns off off a small stand of upright, columnar Oak trees that are planted in a parkway near our downtown.  On many of my early morning walks, I'd stop by, see if the acorns were 'loose' and then grab a few before they fell to the ground.  Our Oaks in our yard last year threw off A HUGE amount of acorns - a mast year.  These columnar oaks were simliar. I identified these as Regal Prince Oak trees and here's a look at some of the acorns as I collected them in September 2023 .   In November, I water-tested them (if they floated, I tossed them), then buried them in wet sand for a long Winter's nap via cold stratification .  I also grabbed three large Chinese Chestnuts and did the same - tested, then tucked-in the fridge for four+ months.   In 2022, I collected a wide variety of acorns, but didn't label them.  This year, I went with JUST ONE species - the Regal Prince Oak. Earlier this month, I took the container out of the fridg

This week, when I came home from work one evening, I noticed a particular active squirrel trying to gnaw-off a bunch of small branches near the bottom of the big crotche(s) on our large Northern Red Oak tree in the back that has our tree swing on it.  I observed him/her for a minute, then quickly saw them scurry back to what appeared to be an emerging/being-established nest.  It was located a couple feet-up from the crotch.  I thought about what to do.  And, decided it was best to remove the nest.  My thinking was that it IS NOT baby season.  This nest is NOT occupied - yet.  It is just being built.  My preference is for him to build it much higher in this tree or...in a different tree further back from the patio/tree swing.  So...I hauled out my ladder (a platform ladder) and used an extension pole that is supposed to be used to hang Christmas lights in high places and knocked the little nest down.  My emotions are still mixed and I'm sure that if this gets views in some folks eye

For the past few months, I've been collecting acorns for a set of columnar oak trees and have been planning on trying to get them ready to plant up in the Spring.  Last Fall, I collected a wide variety of nuts, so when Spring came, I wasn't totally sure what was what.  This year, I know I only have one variety. Here's the pile of Regal Prince Oak (columnar) acorns that I started with: I put them in a bucket of water to test which were viable.    You can see all the floaters below: I also had three Chestnuts that I tossed in, too. After 12 hours, I fished all the floaters out - below are the number of non-viable acorns.  I'd say that's probably half (or more). I went back after 24 hours and found a couple more floating.  I fished those out and tossed them for the critters to enjoy: And here, below, is what I was left with:  enough acorns to pack away in wet sand and stick in the fridge for Winter: Next Spring, I'll pot them up and see if we can grow our own colu

I recently posted an update on the grown-from-seed tree seedlings that I've been nurturing for the past few years and included the oak trees that are from acorns that I collected last Fall .  Last year, I collected a variety of tree species - various oaks, chestnuts and even an Illinois Pecan and stashed them in the fridge to cold stratify.    That lead me to what I'd describe as 'mixed' results.  I have had quite a few seeds turn into seedlings, but because it was a mixed-bag, I am (somewhat) guessing on the variety of the tree and where I picked it from (a park?  Our block? Up in Wisconsin?) when I took the acorns.   But, I've enjoyed that seedling-growing process.  So, this year, I'm simplifying things.  I'm only going to keep ONE variety of acorns over winter.  What tree is that, you might be asking?  The answer is:  I'm not sure.   But, I do, indeed, know that it is a columnar oak tree that is planted along Maple Avenue near downtown Downers Grove.

It has been a while since we have had any meaningful acorns to drop from our pair of mature, large Oak trees in our yard.  2019 was a Mast Year - with an enormous volume of acorns dropping.  We could hardly keep up.  But, 2020, 2021 and 2022 were all acorn-free.  I feared that the Mast Year was a result of stress and the tree was in decline.  And the subsequent years sort-of felt the same way. But this year?  The acorns are back.  And dropping in big numbers.   The Red Oak acorns are coming down in such heavy volume that it appears that the squirrels aren't keeping up.  I'm harvesting dozens of nuts out of the lawn every.single.day.  Maybe the squirrels aren't in 'get ready for Winter' mode yet?  So, they're not paying attention?  I've been picking up as many nuts as I can and piling them up on top of the fence on the side of our yard in hopes that the squirrels will find them. These Oak trees have been on a three-year program that included Growth Regulator

Putting a photo of the large Red Oak tree - the tree swing tree - in the garden diary here to show a little look at the Fall show that the tree is putting on during the first week in November.  You can see in the photo below that the tree is a mix of green and yellow and has held much of the leaves still on the limbs this late in the season - which is typical for this tree and Oaks in general.   I posted a similar photo a year ago - in early November - where the same tree had already lost many of the leaves for the season.   For tracking in the [ tree diary ], I noted that both of our large, mature Red Oak trees had dropped ALL of their leaves by mid/late November last year .  Will be tracking if foliar marcescence will persist this year like it did in 2019.  Here's a photo all the way into December when this tree had leaves clinging to the branches . An additional note about this tree - it didn't produce any acorns this season.  Or, at least, it hasn't dropped any acorn

I collected a couple handfuls of Oak tree acorns (pretty sure they are from a Red Oak) as a project to see if I could work into seedlings next Spring.  There's a lot of info out there about how to plant Oak trees from acorns, but this YouTube video was the most helpful for me .  It isn't super fast-moving, but if you have the time, it is a nice overview.  The steps of growing your own trees start with collecting acorns.  From there, you have to test them for viability - using the 'float test'.   After cleaning them up (removing their tops), you dump them in a bucket of water.  The ones that float aren't viable.  The ones that sink...usually ARE viable.  (the video recommends doing a couple of float tests to be sure...) So, after collecting these acorns, I dumped them into a bucket.  And...not ONE of them appears to be viable.  All floaters. I noticed that most of them have these little in holes on the sides of the acorn.  See the photo below: Well...I learned someth

The leaves have come off of our Oak trees.  The large ones have just a few clinging on, but this tiny one that I planted this year is naked.  This was planted back in May of 2020 and seemed to do just fine back in this location.   The larger trees looked like this all the way into December - thanks to foliar marcescence.  That now has me thinking that I should get a post up in the [garden diary] showing the leaves being off the Oaks by late November this year.  But, back to this small Northern Red Oak tree - and the buds in has set in particular.  Like the other trees in this [tree buds] series, these ones are unique ( thanks Rutherford Platt !) and have some unique characteristics.  First, the color - is what I'd call caramel.  Reminds me of the newish high-end vehicle interiors that you are seeing.  Kind of like a brand new, unused football.  They're also pointy.  In the image below, you can see how there are three of them at the tip of one of the branches with some other o

We have two very large Oak Trees in our backyard.  One of them has been documented here on the blog last Summer - and has our tree swing hanging from it .  The other is on the southside of our property and is almost as massive as the first.  I posted a photo of it's trunk when I was talking about a potential tree house here .  We also have a few medium-sized and a few MASSIVE Black Walnut trees in our yard.  Having these trees around means that come mid-to-late August, our yard starts to transform into a nut wonderland.  Above you see three of the green acorns that I picked up.  They were among HUNDREDS of their brethren.  Some in good shape. Others that have been already worked over by various critters including the Acorn Weevil .  These things aren't falling of their own accord.  Or at least...most of them aren't.  They are being released by squirrels.  It is kind of fun to watch these guys climb up into the extremities of these trees, hang on for dear life and gnaw a