Field Notes—

Sturdy Oaks — Slow To Grow, And Slow To Let Go

By Dottie Evans

Over the years and through several moves, my fondness for certain species of trees has changed.

When I lived in Maryland, dogwoods were easy to love. I welcomed their beautiful white flowers in spring, and then I appreciated their red berries in autumn. During winter, I could always recognize a dogwood by its layered growth habit and the compact flower buds at the branch-ends. And there is that lovely bit of Christian symbolism surrounding the four white petals of each blossom pierced by a blood-red spot.

Then came the anthracnose blight, and the native dogwoods began dying back.

A lot of people went over to the Chinese variety called kousas, and I grant you that in June, kousa dogwoods are very showy. They cover themselves with white blossoms, they are immune to the fungus blight, and in the fall they bear large, globe-shaped berries that resemble miniature hand grenades. My kids loved chucking kousa berries at each other.

But I simply could not warm up to them (the kousas, not the kids). They lacked charm. Besides, they weren’t native to American shores, and I am a bit of a snob about preferring plants and animals that were here long before we arrived. So I moved on to the big eastern hardwoods. Tulip poplars, maples, oaks, hickories, and sycamores. I wish I could have known the elms and chestnuts, as well.

When we moved to Connecticut, I was totally won over by the sugar maples. Down South they simply do not grow as well as they do here where they are impervious to the coldest weather. Sugar maples can live for a relatively long time — 100 years or more — and they grow quickly, which is always gratifying.

They enjoy a favored place in our New England domestic landscape. Early settlers planted little maple plantations called sugar hills for collecting the syrup, and it was not long before sugar maples graced front yards, lined roads, anchored stonewalls, and shaded town greens.

You just can’t beat the maples for fall color. Even during a late season like this one, they steal the show. Maple leaves are the first to flare yellow and red, and when they fall to the ground, we’re wading through a sea of old gold and butterscotch. It would be easy to love maple trees forever and stop right there.

Except for the oaks. When maples begin to show their age, an oak tree is barely getting started.

What single thing in nature could possibly hold more promise for the future than an acorn. Cottontails, gray squirrels, rabbits, white-footed mice, blue jays, turkey, bobwhite, mallards, crows, chipmunks, and raccoons are just some of the creatures that depend on acorns for food.

The deer, beaver, and rabbits eat oak twigs and leaves, and raccoons and possums use holes in oak trees as dens. People, too, derive endless benefit from oak trees. The wood is strong, heavy, and durable. We use it for furniture, construction, shipbuilding, fencing, cabinetry, flooring, and fuel. Its fine grain is distinctively golden, and its hardness reflects the wonderful stubbornness of the entire Quercus species.

An oak takes its own sweet time as it grows to the venerable age of 400 years or so. Slow to leaf out in spring, an oak is even slower to lose its leaves in fall. Some leaves may still cling to the branches through winter snow and ice storms.

Personally, I like this quality of perverse perseverance, and I am somehow comforted by it. This is what I imagine the oaks are saying:

Don’t rush me. Whatever it is, I’ll get around to it. Just because everyone else is leafing out in early spring or blushing scarlet at the first sign of fall, I prefer to change my colors when I always have — later. In November and December, my leaves take on a warm, rich brown color like old leather that has seen long use. They are not about to drop off at winter’s first blast. They’d rather stick around and rattle in the January wind, just to show they can.