My Pet Red Oak

We have an outdoor nursery where I work, and while I was covering one of my cashiers’ breaks I couldn’t help but notice two things: one, that there was a very cute tree with a few red leaves poking around the corner of the other garden booth, and that two, said tree was half off along with all the other trees and shrubs. I set it up on a will call at my first opportunity (a mere $15!) and took it home with me after my shift, its branches extending all the way into the front seat with me from its spot in the trunk. I set it on my front yard and went in to inform my father that I had “brought a pet red oak home.”

“Okay,” he said, “you’ll have to show it to mom and do your homework if you don’t want the deer to eat it or the frost to kill it.” Fine, I can do that.

The Specs

Quercus rubra, says Wikipedia: the northern red oak. Likes shade (we can do that), slightly acidic soil (good, there was a blue spruce growing there before), mulch in winter and fertilizer in summer.

Okay, what kind of mulch? Red, brown, black, cedar, pine nugget, Scott’s Naturescapes? Dear, sweet Jesus. For all that I’ve sold hundreds of dollars of the crap I have no idea what the difference is. To the internet!

With a small application of Google-fu, it seems the colors are simply an aesthetic difference, but looking at the ingredients list for the Scott’s Naturescapes, particle board/composite filler? You mean like plywood? I was then considering an “organic” variety, but apparently organic mulch is just leaves and grass clippings and the like. The cedar or pine nuggets seem to be my best bet–at least they’re natural and may help to keep the pH where the tree wants it.

I’ll have to dig a hole three times as wide and a little less deep, plant it, mulch it three to four inches, and water it with a soak ball so all of the roots get wet. Then I’ll get a deer wrap to keep my neighborhood’s herd away (I’ll have to account for my mildly-rational fear of the animals in another post), and cross my fingers. Hopefully we have a few more weeks before the first frost hits hard.

I’m not going to lie, if this thing dies I’m going to be a little upset, especially after I invest the time to get it situated and protected. Its leaves weren’t in the best condition near the middle, but at the top the leaves were healthy and green. At the same time, it might be too late to plant a tree in this region (contrary to what my coworkers assured me). I wonder if Home Depot’s one year plant guarantee applies to trees as well… hopefully it won’t come to that.

The Spirit

The real motivation behind my getting the tree was my recent affiliation with the ADF: it’s a beautiful reminder of my faith, rich in symbolism, and will definitely help me with the nature awareness requirement of the Dedicant program, if only because I’m getting my feet wet in landscaping (gardening will come next spring, hopefully with some onions and garlic–yum). I feel inclined to give it a name, though I may want to try and listen for it from the leaves themselves.

It’s strange to think that this tree, if it survives, will outlast me and my children and their children–it won’t even begin to produce acorns until I’m gone. There are trees all around you and you don’t realize just how old they are, like the sugar maple that died outside my bedroom window. Its trunk is easily three people’s arm-spans, maybe four. I can’t even how many centuries that must have took. My neighbor had the branches cut maybe ten years ago, and I always wondered if it had housed a wight, and whether that wight was displaced (or angry) afterwards. It was right about then that our families started to fall apart.

I’ll take some pictures once the sapling is planted. If some of the leaves are any indication, the rest of it will turn a stunning shade of red before winter arrives fully-fledged. Rubra indeed.