The Birth of Trees

The old saying from tiny acorns, mighty oak trees grow is a good one. Trees, some of our largest living organisms, begin life from seeds. Powell Gardens does propagate some of its trees from seed. If we want to protect and display a particular population of plants, this is often the only way to do so. Why protect a particular population? We know that the wild trees from a specific area often have traits that make them more adapted to a particular region. It is well documented that many trees with widespread ranges (say Eastern North America), those from the more southern part of the range may not be winter hardy in the northern part of their range and those from northern parts languish in the heat when planted in the southern part of their range. Trees from drier regions of their range are often more drought tolerant is another example. Sometimes certain populations have more disease resistance too.

Here is a tray of young Butternut (Juglans cinerea) trees that have germinated from butternuts collected from underneath a wild tree not far from here. Butternut is a tree in trouble -- an imported canker disease has wiped it out from much of its range. Where I grew up I have watched all the mature trees die, a few saplings still grow but all are infested with the canker. Before long, they will be gone as remaining trees never live long enough to produce nuts (their seed). Powell Gardens is just past the butternut's native range, so trees planted here do not yet get canker disease.

Here is a closer look of young butternut trees. Seeing the luxuriant growth of these young seedlings inspired me to write this blog. I hope one day they will grow and produce the tasty, football shaped nuts beneath their uniquely flat-topped crowns. Their beautiful silvery plated, charcoal striped trunks protect a most beautiful light colored wood -- too rare to be of commercial importance.

Marie Frye (Senior Gardener -- Plant Records & Collections) is in charge of growing all our unique trees. Here she takes a closer look at her baby butternuts as today they will be transplanted into individual deep, open bottom pots so that they can grow strong roots that will be naturally "air pruned" as their roots reach the bottom of their new container. This is a good way to grow plants that have deep tap roots as seedlings.


Marie planted many Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) nuts too. See my Old Hickory blog for part of their story. These are grown in competition for a national program sponsored by a local garden club. Shagbark Hickories grow roots and not crowns for the beginning of their life so are not available at local nurseries (they are not cheap to produce and take time). They are very ornamental and important trees and these will be planted at various locations around the metro so their kind will not be lost.


Here are seedlings of Cucumber Magnolia (Magnolia acuminata). Cucumber Magnolia is a large shade tree native on the west side of the Appalachians from Ontario to Alabama and makes a fine shade tree here but is rarely if ever available at nurseries. These are grown from seed of the magnificent tree near the Southwest corner of Loose Park.



Sometimes we do propagate trees from cuttings to ensure an exact clone of a plant. This is a cutting grown young Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora). Because we are at the northernmost place where they will successfully grow outdoors, we have propagated some of the region's best examples to find a more hardy one for local gardens.


It hard to believe that this tiny seedling is from the largest tree in our region! This is a seedling of a Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) grown from a massive, 8 foot diameter trunked tree near Mayview. Eric Tschanz (Powell Gardens Director) and I stopped in to visit its owner and collect seed on the way back from a meeting in Columbia. Obviously this tree has the genes to be a survivor in our region. Someday I would like to propagate all of Greater Kansas City's champion trees for planting at Powell Gardens.


These are seedlings of wild Flowering Dogwoods (Cornus florida) grown from trees on the western edge of their range not far from here. We hope they are better able to survive the vagaries of our weather as Flowering Dogwood can be fickle here -- if planted from too far south it is not hardy or if from too far east it doesn't like our lower humidity and rainfall.



This is a Dwarf Hackberry (Celtis tenuifolia) seedling from a local wild tree. Dwarf Hackberry is not the most ornamental of trees but is very heat and drought tolerant, hosts 5 species of butterflies' caterpillars, produces sweet berries for us and birds, and grows only 15 to 18 ft. tall at maturity.



Speaking of edible plants, these are seedlings of some of our select Pawpaws (Asimina triloba) now growing in the yet to open Heartland Harvest Garden. Maybe one day they will produce the best tasting pawpaws ever! A good way to find new varieties is to plant out seedlings and test them over time.


This seedling has traveled around the world. It is a Pistachio (Pistachia vera) grown from the hardiest known Pistachios in Uzbekistan. We purchased it from One Green World which is a great nursery that introduces hardy edible plants from around the world. This is one of 3 seedlings -- Pistachios are male and female plants and you can't tell the boys from the girls until they start to bloom. These seedlings will be planted in the Fun Food Garden section of the Heartland Harvest Garden.



The tall spindly tree in this picture is of a very special plant started from a special population of trees. It is an Oklahoma Live Oak (Quercus fusiformis) donated by Steve Bierberich,owner of Sunshine Nursery in Clinton, OK. It is grown from a relic, disjunct Oklahoma population of the Escarpment Live Oak (the same live oaks you see in Austin, Texas). It has proven to have good hardiness into the lower Midwest! Our two trees will be planted in the Vineyard portion of the Heartland Harvest Garden where they will add to the Mediterranean theme of that garden. The acorns of this species are very low tanin and were once an important human food source.

May this blog inspire you to plant trees, from seed or from your favorite nursery: just get out and plant them! As 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, who started The Green Belt Movement to plant trees and restore the environment and democracy in Kenya, said in her acceptance speech "to give back to the children a world of wonder and beauty." Wangari Maathai also has a Greater Kansas City connection as she received her bachelor's degree in biology from what is now Benedictine College in Atchison, KS.
All photographs were taken in Powell Gardens' greenhouses on April 15, 2009.

Old Hickory

Hickory Nuts are one of the tastiest of the season's wild bounty. Native Americans crushed and boiled them to extract their nutritious fat and oils for use as cooking oil or to add to other foods.


Here I placed some Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) nuts on the planting plan for the Living off the Land portion of the new Heartland Harvest Garden. Hickories are a prime example of a native edible. Shagbark Hickory nuts are delicious but it's not easy to crack and extract the nutmeat. It is worth the effort as hickory nutmeat is great raw or in hickory nut pie and other baked goods!


Horticulturist Richard Heter stands next to one of Powell Gardens' old Shagbark Hickories. This tree is only 3 feet in diameter but 100 feet tall (see the series of images below looking up to the crown of this tree). It grows in the core of Powell Gardens up the creek bed behind the Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel. Powell Gardens has several presettlement hickories--the easiest one to see is in the road ellipse in front of the Visitor Center. The bark of local trees is not as shaggy as typical; I will have to find out why.






Hickories are also valued for their strong, shock-resistant lumber and of course it is a favorite for smoking food: hickory smoked flavor is legendary. Hickories are never seen in nurseries and rarely planted by gardeners. A seedling tree can grow a 5 foot tap root--with little above ground growth. With proper root pruning they can be grown in special containers or root bags for transplanting. This strong root growth contributes to the drought tolerance and longevity of the tree.


See below for a quote from my favorite tree book: Native Trees for North American Landscapes by Guy Sternberg. (A great gift for anyone with interest in trees and available at Powell Gardens' Gift Shop).


This is the great tree whose name was adopted by Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson, the hickory-tough, battle hardened, seventh president of the United States. He even planted a few shagbarks at the Hermitage, his home near Nashville, TN (they are still there today!). It is unfortunate that few others have followed his example, as hickories are notoriously slow to mature and challenging to transplant, and modern folks want "easy" trees. Many of our most magnificent specimens in wooded neighborhoods are remnants of presettlement vegetation, and as they begin to die out, no one is replacing them. Please plant a hickory -- any hickory -- for posterity! My sentiments exactly.

Shellbark Hickory (Carya laciniosa) has the largest nuts of any but they are still hard to crack. These are often called Kingnut or Missouri Mammoth Hickories. We have several of these trees in our Heartland Harvest Garden nursery. They will be worth the wait and I know future generations will be glad we planted them. They usually grow wild in deep soils on flood terraces in our region.

These are Mockernut Hickory (Carya tomentosa) nuts. These nuts are so hard to crack that they make a mockery of anyone who tries. The tree is a magnificent and beautiful plant, especially in fall when cloaked in golden foliar attire.

Red Hickory (Carya ovalis) has reddish tinted brown nuts. This tree often grows on very dry ridges in our region. Botanists have trouble differentiating it from the Pignut Hickory (Carya glabra) whose nuts were at least good for pig fodder.

The toughest of our local hickories is the Black Hickory (Carya texana). This tree grows really slowly and often is just a small tree growing on some or our poorest, driest soils. The trunks of larger trees are charcoal black.

I couldn't find any nuts of our most well known hickory: PECAN (Carya illinoinensis)! This image is looking up into trees in our nursery. Pecan nut husks remain up in the tree like black "flowers." The nuts have fallen and are immediately devoured by a whole host of creatures from people to 'possoms, Blue Jays and crows. Pecans are native to floodplains in the immediate area and several selections that will thrive in our area and produce larger-sized, easier-to-crack nuts than the typical wild trees can now be purchased from mailorder nurseries. These "northern" pecans have rich flavor, superior to the paper shell "southern" varieties commercially grown outside the pecan's native range, which is from Illinois and Missouri southward into Texas.

Some of our pecans in our old nursery are getting quite large. We do plan to transplant some of them, hiring Colonial Nurseries' largest tree spade. These were twice transplanted in youth so should make the transfer. Seedling and sapling pecans are true to their hickory relatives and grow a long deep taproot that makes them difficult to transplant -- the earlier transplantings helped us prune their roots for future moving. Look for these trees in the future pecan orchard of the Heartland Harvest Garden. They are already bearing nuts.