If you live in one of Maryland’s older towns, you probably have a lot of heritage trees – native trees inherited from the forests and fields that existed before your town was built out. It’s part of what gives old towns so much character. In my home town, Takoma Park, one of the heritage trees I admire the most is the post oak (Quercus stellata).
Post oaks inspire me. I see beauty in their shiny, cruciform leaves and their tiny, striped acorns. I also admire the species’ capacity to cope with adversity. Many of the post oaks in Takoma Park are confined to little hell strips, those narrow grassy areas between slabs of asphalt or concrete. There they must cope with soil compaction, deicing salts, copious quantities of dog urine, and the urban heat island, to name a few.
Post oaks are one of the most common trees at Soldier’s Delight Natural Area, where the serpentinite bedrock gives rise to a soil so laden with heavy metals that it’s too toxic for most plants to grow in. Perhaps tolerance of metals helps the post oak perform well at urban sites, even sites near train tracks and in industrial parks.
Post oaks are planted by squirrels, not people, but I think perhaps we should give it a try. And I’m in good company on that score. No less an authority than Michael Dirr, author of the Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, has also “Developed a fondness for the species,” as he puts it, “because of the great foliage and picturesque growth habit. Trees become artistic, sculptural entities in old age.”
By Sara Tangren, Ph. D., Sr. Agent Associate, Sustainable Horticulture and Native Plants, University of Maryland Extension, Home & Garden Information Center
we also live in Takoma Pk. and have a huge red and one white oak but not a post oak
Look for post oak leaves on the ground as you walk around town, it’s the fastest way to detect a tree nearby. The poor tree w the ivy on it is behind Starbucks.
Thank you for this article; I had been unaware of post oaks.
That is one that I have never even seen. The blackjack oak that lives all the way out to Oklahoma is supposed to be similar, but I cannot compare without ever seeing a post oak. I found blackjack oak to be very compelling because we have nothing like it here.
Blackjack oak, Quercus marilandica, also awesome!
Like many Eastern specie, it has a huge range. The oaks here are limited to much smaller areas. Some live in only a few adjacent valleys, but nowhere else. The oaks in the San Joaquin Valley are different from those in the coastal valleys. They change every few miles. It was compelling to see blackjack oak everywhere we went in Oklahoma, and to know that the range continues all the way to the East.
How about a stealth removal of that English ivy some dark night?
In a burglar costume with a mask? Tempting! For our readers let me note that pulling English ivy that’s growing on the ground is a great technique, but it is not recommended to pull ivy vines that are growing up tree trunks because they take some of the bark with them, and also because the vines can fall down on top of your head! There’s a great fact sheet on English ivy control here: https://www.invasive.org/weedcd/pdfs/wgw/englishivy.pdf