Plant your own oak tree at home!

It’s not complicated, you hardly need anything and you’ll have fun for a long time – watering the oak tree and watching it grow is a pleasant affair. Anyone can do it, read how the acorn elf went about it.

One day the little acorn elf wanted to go swinging on the swing, but the weather outside was just ugly – it was blowing and raining. He really didn’t want to go out in the weather, so he just sighed to me, too bad I don’t have a tree here in your house. But he immediately jumped up with joy – That’s an idea, we’ll plant our own oak tree here in a pot and when it grows a bit bigger I’ll put a swing on it! As soon as it got nice outside, we headed out into the garden to find a suitable acorn.

Since it was spring, we had it pretty easy – there were a lot of sprouting acorns under the oaks. The acorn elf took a long time to rummage through them and finally picked one out

At home I helped him to prepare a pot with some soil, but he planted the acorn himself (but he also made a lot of mess, which he didn’t clean up).

Then we put the pots with the acorns on the window in the sunroom, and from then on, acorn elf watered them with his teapot.

Now all I had to do was water regularly and watch for the sprout to emerge. We got there in about 10 days – the first leaves were so tiny that the acorn elf had to take a magnifying glass to see them.

1. May 2021 (10. day after planting) – detail of the first leavesBut then the oak grew like water… well, it actually grew out of water! In 10 days he was bigger than an acorn elf!

In less than a month, it grew another tier of leaves and started to make a nice shade – Acorn elf also put moss around it, so that the pot would not evaporate so much water and especially so that it would be soft when he went there to read his favourite book.

And that’s the last photo for now, but it’s certainly not the end of the story. As soon as the small oak grows, I’ll add the sequel here!

Some advices on how to plant an oak tree at home

• You can probably plant an oak tree at any time – just find a few healthy acorns (you’d better get more in the woods), tuck them into a pot so they stick out a bit and water regularly.
• Examine the acorns carefully and pick through them – discard the soft and wormy ones. You can do a swim test – put them in water and after a few minutes discard the ones that float
• To help germination, do a ‘stratification‘ – soak them in water and then put them in the fridge for 6-8 weeks – preferably in a plastic bag with some damp soil, peat or other moisture retaining material. The moisture should be neither too much (the acorns will rot) nor too little (they will dry out). Basically, you are simulating winter and telling the seed when it is pulled up that it is spring and should start to germinate.
• You can also grow oaks hydroponically – without pots and soil. I didn’t really believe in it, so I tried it. So far they are growing like water!

Do you have any other advice and tips for growing oak trees? Should he keep it in a pot or plant it outside? Let me know in the comments!