Los Padres Oaks in Miniature

This is my oldest, grown from an acorn off the massive oak at Indian Cave. She's 3 and a half years old.

I'm stuck on call this beautiful Memorial Day weekend. What this means is that I'm expected to be 100% at work within 30 minutes of receiving that phone call, and there's already been five of those this weekend, so far. I was sitting in the back yard doing nothing when it occurred to me that I've never mentioned my trees...banzai oak trees born from Los Padres acorns, that is.

Several years ago I collected a couple acorns from the grand old California Oak at Indian Cave, brought them home, potted them and waited to see what would happen. One acorn failed, but one sprouted and is growing into a real beauty. After the first little oak sprouted I rounded up several more acorns from various corners of the Los Padres and they too have sprung to life. I have found that if potted most acorns will sprout, but it requires as much as a year before a baby oak breaks the soil from the time it is planted. These little trees are pretty resilient and once they've grown a couple inches it's a pretty good bet that they'll keep growing for a very long time.