Back on September 16, 2025, our large, still healthy-looking white oaks began dropping acorns on my head as I was looking for seeds and weeds. I took this as a sign that I should stop working and start collecting. Soon I had several lunch bags full and felt a satisfaction that a squirrel must when she has provided food for her family for all the cold months ahead. Two days later I buried about 100 acorns into three large flats. Some looked like they already were pushing out a root, so I was hopeful.
For days, nothing came up. Through October, nothing. Into November I decided to take the flats home to my basement plant room for the winter. It gets southern sun and is unheated —perfect for the acorns to hibernate in safety. I was hopeful.
A few days later, when I went to check the soil moisture, I was horrified to see acorn pieces and mouse excavations all over the flats. I enlisted old window screens and mouse traps. Perhaps there were still some intact acorns doing their thing? I became vigilant. I was hopeful.
Fast forward through a long winter feeding peanut butter to mice…and finally spring. No tiny oak stem anywhere. I removed the screens and gave up—but only after watering and refreshing the traps. Still hopeful?
I don’t know how many days later, I went to peek at the mouse traps and saw that several (30 or so) small oak stems, some with leaves, had emerged from the ravaged planting beds. Hope returns!
On May 28, 2026, I set out to plant six of the healthiest looking seedlings. But how? And where?
Ok, first the why. My blog, Oak Decline (August 28, 2024), detailed a possible grim future for oaks in the Midwest. Bur oak blight, the twolined chestnut borer, honey fungus and water mold (all facilitated by heat and drought stress) are making oak survival difficult. So, what if we plant tiny oak seedlings?
How? But can I do it successfully? I figured these five-inch seedlings needed all the protection I could give them when I planted them into “the wild.” Their roots barely measured another five inches, and they needed some predictable shade. Amazon to the rescue with a set of “tree protectors” (Niuyhe brand) sold in a kit that includes 12 metal screens, zip ties, and long metal u-shaped stakes. To provide shade, I used old Amazon mailers that I cut up and duct taped onto the outside of the wire screens. I left a one-inch vent space at the bottom and tied an orange ribbon at the top for visibility.
Where to plant? There are holes in the sky up in our savannas where giant oaks have died. My aim was to plant a seedling in those areas and also near trees that have been slowly looking worse and worse over the years. When I went looking for my planting spots, I began noticing that in many areas there already WERE young oaks, either scattered near their old “mother trees” or flourishing where their ancestor tree was long gone. I was a bit startled by hope.
We all know that Emily Dickinson described hope as being “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” But I didn’t remember that she ends her first verse with “and never stops—at all.“