Long ago, about 55 years ago, we had a white oak in our front yard. I was around 7 years old. I think it got old and started dying, so my dad cut it down and left some stump. I put some dirt there and planted one of the acorns. It grew. And grew, and grew. I drove past the house after being gone many years, and now it's a magnificent tree. 🌳💓
I planted my first acorn when I was 10 I think. I swear to god it took 1 year to sprout, but 10 years later it's waaaay taller than me and is thriving :D I'm really proud of my tree
I found a small field 5 years back and been planting oaks ever since. "Anyone who plants a tree, knowing that they'll never bask in it's shade, truly knows the meaning of life."
This, I'm trying to set up my own little field and plant various species so my baby niece and possible her children can enjoy the shade and nut harvests to come once I'm resting.
I’m growing oak trees, and in just 1 week, my saplings doubled in size. Update: I did 3 oak trees. One died a few days after planting, another died right after transplanting it outside in spring, and the last one got eaten in September but it grew back from its roots and looks perfectly healthy!
A suggestion that I learned from grow my Lemmon trees. Indoor growth: put an oscillating fan on it. This will cause the trunk to be a lot stronger. Like the wind would be for it outside. You will have to water it more often but the roots and trunk will be strong and not flop over from the weight of the leaves.
Hey! Its been 2 years since this video was uploaded, can you make an other video on the progress of the plants? Not these in particular if they didnt survive but the other oaks too
Greetings fellow Tennessean. I've been collecting white oak acorns on our property to plant more. The deer love them. Might take too long for them to mature for me and my dad to enjoy that benefit but hopefully my kids will able to enjoy better hunts because of them.
I'm sold on white oaks - thank you so much for this. I'd absolutely love to hear anything more that you've learned while growing these little guys, as I'll definitely be attempting to germinate about 120 of them over the following couple years, mostly intending to plant them among the tree stumps of logged areas in my community, and donating them to those who wish to see a healthier earth, just like us.
Hi Robyn, I see your pos is now 4 months old. How is it going with your baby oak trees? I'm thinking to get started, but just wanted to see what other people's experiences have been.
I live surrounded by trees, and have my whole life. I hadn't even realised how many oak trees were in my yard until I was walking around and found an acorn on the ground last year and I suddenly became invested in planting as many as I could. I go outside everyday to get the freshest ones that have fallen, I'm going to collect as many as I can and then mass plant them. Thank you for helping to guide me in the right direction on how to plant the acorns and grow my own oaks.
Ditto here as well Lynnette and well done. We have 3 oaks by our place and they drop so many but they are right on the road so they get mashed. Seeing as how we human only take and trash, it's my good deed for life. Every morning I'm out picking up the biggest ones I can find and driving to my different jobs they get lobbed into the hedges and thickets that the council tractors can't reach to trim. After this film I'll be germinating them in pots first.
@@petergambier I have the same problem, there's about four trees on my property line that drop a lot of acorns right on the driveway. And I agree that humans do leave a lot of things worse than when they left it, which is why it's so important to spread the word on what can make the world better from when you got here. Good luck and God bless. :)
Thanks for this, I appreciate it, I’m trying to help replant some trees in the forest by my house since they keep getting cut down so the info helps alot
❤ i planted 5 sessile oak acorns last Sept, pots on window sill indoors. 1 sprouted, 4 didn't. I plan to do the same later this year with maybe 20 to 30 acorns. I read on a tree council website that oak trees drop the non viable acorns first, then the "big fall" happens a while later. Everyone should sow acorns, our planet needs more trees.
I found 2 sprouted acorns on the sidewalk of my school, so i potted them and so far they are doing great. I had 0 experience with trees and ive killed all of my other plants but my trees are growing perfectly
This was really helpful. I am planning on starting a business on selling trees this summer. This is the way I planned on doing it because there is a large oak tree in my front yard that drops hundreds of acorns each year. Once again I thank a lot for this and keep up the videos dude.🙂
Thank you very much, I just found a daughter of a huge white oak and the tap root was emerging, I am going to take care of her successfully thanks to you. 🙏🏻
Thanks for the video. I'm going to plant some oaks now where I live in England. I didn't know it was this easy. I hope they will live a long life, like over a century.
Squirrels planted, unbeknown to me, my White Oak acorn in a large terra cotta pot filled with potting soil. When it sprouted I let it grow to a height of about three feet then transplanted it to my yard. It grew to a height of about Tennessee feet and I put Jobe tree spikes (fertilizer) around the tree’s drip line (the point of widest spread of horizontal limbs. That was 18 years ago. Today my tree is about 50 feet high and has a trunk diameter of 2.5 feet when measured 4 feet off the ground. In areas where the White Oak can get good water and in live silty loam soils they grow like gangbusters.
We bought an old worn out farm with hardy any soil left, I planted 1500 hundred mixed nut seedlings . And the following years well over 10,000 mixed nuts all by hand. That was 12 yrs ago, I am now getting regeneration from some of them.
The “Foresters” clear cut 273 acres of old, old oak trees that two people together could hardly reach around. It was all the property that surrounded a beautiful 120 acre lake on which we owned a small lot. They were in there for months, haulin’ those trees out. It was a total wasteland, except for one oak tree they left standing. Three days later they came and cut the oak down and just let it lie there. My sons and I got the idea to pick up as many acorns as we could, back at our house, as they were falling at the time. We hauled grocery bags full of acorns up there and scattered them everywhere. The pines started coming up but slowly the oaks started emerging. Years later we were tickled to see oak trees popping up everywhere! Although, they would never replace the Oaks that were taken, (never in three lifetimes)it was a small, sly little sliver of accomplishment. Well, just as they were starting to get 15-20’ tall, they came and thinned the pine stand, taking about half of “our” oaks. Bummer. The ones they missed have gotten so big over the years, and we were happy about that. The stories of all the time we spent walking under and playing around those giant oaks of old, are often told as we walk under our “young” oaks that we planted. They are 60’-70’ tall now and we were able to purchase 30 acres of the land. It will never, ever come close to how beautiful it once was, but it brings us joy knowing we did what we could, and we continue to do more.
I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve found by placing the acorn inside a plastic zip lock bag withe a wet paper towel is the best way to germinate it or cause it to root. Next I place it into a plastic pot an place it on a shelve in the morning sun. It’s a great hobby and I have trees that I planted over 100 ft tall.
Hello Iowa In that same Derecho , I call it a Tidal Wind I lost a oak that was 13 feet in cicumference I am still cutting up that tree. It was some storml
Just started a seed that my little sister brought home from school a while back; was inspired to start it because of how fast climate change is taking effect and how long we actually have left to fix it. It has been 3 weeks since and now the single seed has grown its first roots. I was heavily inspired from this video too and I learned so much from it, thanks
I grabbed some healthy acorn from an Oak tree in texas. Took them back to Nor-Cal out in the country where I'm at. I've got 4 acorns/hopeful's in some good soil for about 11 days now.
There was a tree along the river with a rope tied to an overhanging branch. Young folks must've had been enjoying swing into the river for a long time, as there used to be a boy scout campground there. The park cut it down, for insurance liability reasons. It think it was an oak. I want to plant a new one for future generations to enjoy.
thanks man i was looking for an company that sells organic non GMO seedling oak tress on the east cost but can't find anything, its kind of an impossible task for me to grow and try to plant it on my own but thanks for the motivation and knowledge. Keep up the good work.
If anything your video is quite inspirational as I’ve just got into having green fingers and I’m trying to do it as cheap as possible which if anything is a really good thing as it’s going to mean I will be harvesting tree seeds that are the most native they can be so can’t really do it wrong in that respect got plenty learning to do though so thank you for sharing your knowledge!! Cheers.
Where I live, there are tonnes of oak trees ∴ tonnes of acorns, and tonnes of squirrels. The squirrels go crazy , and bury acorns all over the place in the fall, leading to more than dozens of little sproutlings in people's manicured lawns every spring (doing the germination for us!). I saved a couple last year (after they had been mowed over multiple times), thought they had all died when they lost their handful of leaves earlier than expected/generally seemed dried out, but I held on to one anyway - lo and behold, this year it's already sprouting new leaves! Now I'm trying to decide if I should nip its new growth or if I should just leave it alone (ehh... I'll leave it alone, and focus on shaping it and doing more to encourage growth for shaping when it's older c: ), but am looking forward to picking some new plants that squirrels surely germinated for us this last year Houseplants taken out of their natural environments would lead one to believe that plants are finnicky and not particularly robust (I keep killing common junipers that I'm trying to treat as bonzai :/ ), but after hundreds of thousands to millions of years of evolution, surprise surprise, they're pretty robust in the appropriate environment/growing conditions (really shouldn't be a surprise, but it still amazes me)! Makes me think of germinating lima beans in elementary school - it was amazing, but I feel I forgot as an adult how cool it is - thanks for re-inspiring interest for people with a video like this!
I have just began pulling the saplings out of the garden. They were growing along the vegetables, I didn't want to just throw them in the compost. These plants seem to grow deep roots and can grow in between cracks in between rocks, where I found one of them. Along with these I have found maple saplings scattered which seem to grow in similar conditions but have shallow roots, or were easily pulled out. I put all of them in separate pots.
I have a hundred oak I’ve or squirrels have planted. Most r big enough to b free of predators as for some reason they’ll chew them off especially during winter but I still put a 4’cage around each one to save my work. A learning experience. I have more than in the whole neighborhood. Would love to see the hood in a hundred years from now. I’ll rip knowing I did my deed.
I grow weed and had a bunch of oak trees pop up in my pots inside under my lights. I keep my soil mix outside in a kiddie pool under the shed so I guess the squirrels must've buried acorns in there. They're doing well under the lights though, and I want to take them to the park to plant after I harvest this weed. Maybe my new obsession will be growing trees
It’s been almost 3 years since you put this video out and it’s still great! In fact, after purchasing some acorns from them, a tree farmer had suggested this video to me to get me started quickly. So here’s the thing… I’m currently in New York City: plant zone 7b, and I want to nurse all of my acorns in-house until say, late June to early July; where then I will move them outside in to the ground in Cheraw, South Carolina: plant zone 8a. I put the white oak acorn seeds in a clear 4 mill plymor bag, snuggled in a damp paper towel and sitting at the bottom drawer of my fridge. If I want them to be their strongest and healthiest before I sow them late June to early July, When would it be okay to take them out of the fridge and sow them in a long funnel pot to promote long tap-root growth? How soon should I sow them before I pack them up for my trip to South Carolina and transfer them to the dirt? How should I package them for a safe, one day trip? When I sow the acorns, can I use prepuchased whole peat moss rather than mulch? I really appreciate you dearly for all of your help. Thank you!
New sub great channel! I planted a dozen five foot tall bare root bur oaks last year and 25 more this year (we are restoring the Oak Savanna on our property). We have quite a few bur oaks in the area, but I couldn't find a single acorn for the last couple of years. The red oaks are putting out a few, but none to be seen on the whites. Going to try from cuttings again this year.
Hi i started my acorns last nov started them in the fridge in moist vermiculite worked fine i grew them inside under a led plant light until april then put them in a pot and put outside now there about a foot tall.
I have not heard of water soaking before... I will have to find more acorns and try this myself. I planted a half dozen in pots and soil and two weeks later no sprouts...
Pluto's Forest how are your acorns? I have done the same half a dozen with plenty of sunlight and watering 2-3 times a day with a sprinkler... am I doing something wrong?? What is your experience?
@@michaelzagoraios4796 from what I've read, White Oak acorns can be planted immediately without stratification, but obviously you and I are having trouble with this method. A good tip I saw is to wrap the seed in a damp paper towel and keep in a dark place until germination. And of course you need to have a good seed to start with. Float test.
I have a Thousand Acorns to plant in November or December, when the ground gets wet. They are going right into the ground. If I get Twenty Trees out of that, I will be happy. That might be the best way to play the numbers game, for Maximum Reforestation.
This video taught us how to lay an acorn in dirt, but not how wet or damp the soil should be when planting them. Or if the soil should be watered or moistened during the waiting/sprouting period. My soil started to become dry just as it was beginning to sprout, so I watered it (apparently too much) and the sprout ended up dying of root-rot from being too wet. I didn’t realize until too late, that the information I’d learned here didn’t cover the *most* important part. The medium it grows in.
@@greenthinking7247 Omg, thank you so much! I didn’t see it because the info was collapsed in the mobile app, so it only showed the top two paragraphs, the basic description of the video. Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me. ☺️☺️☺️
I've learned that planting in a clear spot, away from any other tree, out of the drip line of other plants, will give it more sun, and wind that will make the trunk stronger by it's nateral resistance. The allround sun will allow a more even, rounded limb grouth. You will be happy with it's results.
I have propagated a number of acorns with a variety of success and I can boast that they are presently flourishing in the UK countrywide. My occasional downfall has been getting to the acorns before the squirrels do and netting them once growth develops..
Thanks for putting this up Green Thinking. Nicely explained and illustrated thanks. I have to recommend a book to you called Wilding by Isabella Tree. The introduction is really depressing so leave that till you finish the book. Chapter 1 is about Oaks and ancient Oaks and the symbiotic relationship between the jay and this species of tree that is astounding, and true. The rest of the book is quite an extraordinary journey of selling off their dairy herd and cereals equipment in 2001 just before the foot & mouth virus decimated so many old farms and their livestock with hooves. By taking out the drainage in the fields not only did they restore the equilibrium they also stopped the flooding of the villages below their 5,000 acres and are finally turning a profit because they don't feed or care for their free-ranging Dartmoor ponies, longhorn cattle, pigs and deer, they care for themselves and are left to wander the fields and woodland that they manage at the Knepp estate.
Great video! I have some questions. What season did you plant this in? What potting soil/mix did you use? Do I need to bring these in in the winter as seedlings or can they stay outside in the winter?
Just started my own coast live oaks from 5 seeds. Unfortunately I only realized that they are red oaks after trying to germinate them so only 1 has ended up sprouting. I'll see where it goes from here.
