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A sign at the Chicago Botanic Garden said some oaks live 300 years and I stood there feeling dumb
Went to the Chicago Botanic Garden on Saturday with my kid and stopped at a placard near a big bur oak. It said that tree was already mature before Illinois was a state, like 250 plus years old. I always thought oaks grew fast and died around 80 or 90, so this hit me sideways. Been babying a little oak in my yard for two springs, watering it like a houseplant, and now I realize I was fussing over something that outlives my grandkids. How long does it actually take a bur oak to even look like a tree, because mine still looks like a stick with opinions?
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miaharris23d ago
Oh come on, a sign at a garden isn't exactly a science test, and feeling dumb over a tree fact seems like a lot. Lots of things live longer than we do, that doesn't mean you did anything wrong by watering a sapling. Bur oaks are slow, sure, but a stick with opinions in year two is pretty normal for most young trees, not some sign you messed up. The placard was probably talking about the oldest ones in ideal spots, not the average oak in somebody's yard with clay soil and a lawnmower nearby. You're not dumb, you just learned a thing on a Saturday outing, which is honestly the whole point of going.
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