It’s a pretty nice day, but I don’t feel like doing anything. Critics might suggest that that’s why the garden looks the way it does, but I did in fact do some raking for about five minutes, and also noticed that my Blue Hole oak died. Sob.

Well, I have another one. There were two, grown from acorns collected by Allan Taylor, at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and I transplanted them because they were getting too much shade. Little oaks are extremely sensitive to any sort of fiddling with their roots. So I took some pictures of a few of the little oaks here, all in their cages to protect them from rodents and rabbits, and one larger oak.

The ones labeled Quercus undulata are what most botanists consider to be hybrids with Q. gambelii and another species, the latter being practically anything, I guess. Oaks that are evergreen in their native habitats, like Q. grisea, are not completely evergreen here.

Assuming all the little oaks live, the garden will be almost nothing but oaks, which is fine with me, since these will grow with no supplemental irrigation, and, they are, after all, oaks.

Quercus undulata from Blue Hole

Quercus undulata

Quercus undulata

Quercus grisea. A much larger plant.

Quercus chrysolepis X Q. vaccinifolia

Quercus gambelii X Q. arizonica