"Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making of room for another." Henry David Thoreau
As we've learned over the past year, the Hawksbill Pines neighborhood began to be developed during the '20's and '30's, beginning as farm land - corn fields, even. As weekend and summer houses were built there, trees were planted, mainly fast growing pines. Gradually, hard woods have mixed in so that we have hickory and oak interspersed with the pines.
This is the case on our lots too. I've become interested in the oaks, especially, because of their variety - I'd never given much thought to how many types there are after you get past the basics of red or black, and white.
Based on these acorns and the leaf shapes of our trees, my guess is we have White Oaks here - the basic variety. The leaf ends are rounded with deep sinuses, which separate them from the Burr Oak and Swamp White, while the acorn have a textured cup and pointy end, which separates them from the Chestnut Oak.
I guess we have a half dozen of these around the house. They are all just about the same age, probably 60 years old or so. They are between 15 and 24 inches in diameter at the trunk and range as high as 60 feet. We have one area where there is a cluster of 3 of them (thanks to the squirrels and jays), and another area with three mixed in with the pines.
Gradually, the oaks will over take the pines and that is how our lot will be treed - why I chose the Thoreau quote to open this post.
2 comments:
They say there are some 600 types of oaks around the world and you're probably correct about the weaker pines ... some oaks will live a long time but they are prone to insects. The evil Gypsy Moth, my personal nemesis, is very fond of the White Oak leaf. In fact, when it comes to making room for this passing pest or that, it would be just fine with me if Thoreau's nature should turn its attention to the Gypsy Moth.
I haven't seen any gypsy moths yet, but we do have pine beetles and they have done their damage to a couple of the trees. We will probably be taking down four or five of them at some point this Fall or next Spring. I've been finding little volunteer sprouts from the pines and am cultivating them in pots, but it's a multi-year commitment...humans operate on a significantly different timeframe than Mother Nature does.
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