Project Acorn Tree Giveaway
Planting a Living Legacy of the Founding of Jamestown
Tree care info and neighborhood coordinators
Download the Fact Sheet and Quiz
Project Acorn is a new initiative to provide approximately 750 Jamestown Cherrybark Oaks for planting throughout Arlington County public and private lands this year. The Virginia Department of Forestry hand picked the acorns for these seedlings from Jamestown island. The resulting two-year-old seedlings will be offered to historic sites, schools, community centers, neighborhoods, and parks throughout Arlington County.
The trees will be given away along with information about the tree’s historical significance and environmental benefits of enhancing Arlington’s tree canopy. With a lifespan of over 250 years, these trees will serve as a living legacy for this and future generations of how our country was founded in Jamestown and the bounty of Virginia.
The Story of the Cherrybark Oak at Jamestown
Bounty of Virginia Engraving by Theodor de Bry
When English colonists arrived in 1607, they marveled at the "paradise" of virgin hardwoods that covered the land. These "goodly tall trees" enabled the settlers to build houses, forts, boats, furniture. Oak lumber was Jamestown’s first export to England -- boards were 40 feet long and 4 feet wide. Billy Apperson, the forester who researched the trees connection with the 17th-century Jamestown settlement, concluded that those spectacular boards must have come from the cherrybark oaks, which are native to the island.
For more activities and information on Cherrybark oaks, Jamestown, and acorns, visit:
www.dof.virginia.gov/press/nr-2006-12-01-Jamestown-Oaks.shtml
Explore Jamestown400's Souvenirs that last a lifetime
Acorn Maze http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes/Shape_Mazes/Acorn-Maze.html
The People Behind the Project
Project Acorn was the idea of the Maywood Community Association and is funded through a grant from the Arlington Committe on Jamestown 2007 with labor donated by Arlington County Parks Recreation and Community Resources.
Founded in 1909, Maywood is one of the oldest of Arlington’s residential districts and one of the best remaining examples of early trolley suburbs. Maywood was designated an Arlington Historic District in 1990, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, and continually strives to preserve its history and natural resources.
Watercolor of Maywood Streetscape by Joseph DeBor
Alison Davis-Holland (Parks Chair) and Peter Boone (President) from the Maywood Community Association initiated this proposal to help bring more native trees to Arlington. Maywood's Friends of Thrifton Hill Park is continually working to create a more sustainable environment by removing invasive plants, planting trees, and improving the habitat at Thrifton Hill Park, a county-owned 3.5-acre nature park in the Maywood neighborhood.
Patrick Wegeng from Arlington County Parks' Landscape and Forestry Division is donating the labor for potting and growing the seedlings larger in the County nursery as well as some of the planting on public lands.
A Living Legacy Starts with an Acorn!