acorn -preserve and display one acorn

15 years ago

Yes, one acorn. I have just a handful of wonderful plump acorns that I collected from a special tree blown down by a wind storm. How do I preserve them? With that poly spray? The caps have come off - what to glue them with?

THEN, I am making a gift of one each to two people who were also sentimental about the tree. Other than just hand it to them....I need ideas of some presentation. I imagine it will be sitting on their desk at work. Tree is gone, nothing left no more acorns or leaves.

Thank you in advance.

Scat

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Comments (5)

sunnyca_gw
15 years ago
Any seed type things I usually put in 200 degree oven for few minutes-kills any bugs inside the acorns,do it with pinecones,any kind of seed pods,even old nuts that I'm going to spray paint. I used to make small wall plaques of natural things. Don't know how large they are but could get about 3 in round plaques from Michael's & stain & attach. I think hot glue would work for reattaching cap to acorn & for attaching to plaque. then spray the whole thing with clear acrylic. Date & name kind of tree or address where tree was on bottom. Could use as paperweight I guess. I have 2 3x5 long plaques hanging up in my house with dried acorns, a flower look hard pod from neighbor's tree, tiny pinecone looking things about 1/2- 3/4 in. long & couple of other things. They look like they are expensive but weren't. Used med. stain to match furniture in the room, fruitwood I think & sprayed the whole thing with clear acrylic. They look same as day I did them. I wipe the dried parts carefully with damp cloth,furniture polish on the wood. Hope this helps. Jan
paintingfool
15 years ago
A friend of mine is painting acorns to look like snowmen, she made necklaces out of them. Don't know anything about preserving them though.
B
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The Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia)? One of the most common throughout CA. The leaf you describe sounds like it. You can check out that species now that you've got that name. But it might be another species. Bonsai works with these. These acorns sprout and grow easily. Easiest way to sprout is if an oak tree drops litter and acorns into your roof gutters, it all piles up packed in the gutter, add Winter rains, perfect sprouting environment...just check your gutters around now, you will likely find acorns sprouting. Then you can pull multiple acorns out and pot up a multiple trunk display, which is so much neater than a single trunk. Bonsaied, these tend to throw out long whippy branches...you just keep pruning back to thicken branches and trunk. Not sure of temperature adaptability...29 Palms (high desert?) gets cold...probably under 20 degrees outside often in Winter...snow and colder though? Yes, you might need some winter protection in Minnesota. Good luck. Minnesota got any native oaks?
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I couldn't resist this one, so I went a-googling for oak mast years. Sure enough, there's an article in Mother Earth News that says: "SMART TREES Scientists have barely begun to unravel the many ecological repercussions of the oak forest's wax-and-wane mast cycle. For that matter, they're not entirely sure why the nut crop varies as it does. Certainly weather and other environmental influences are a factorÂa drought can sap trees of reproductive energy; a late spring frost can kill flowers. But weather doesn't appear to be the main influence. Bumper-crop years aren't always especially weather-blessed. Poor mast years occur even when conditions are ideal for acorn growth. Many scientists now believe the mast cycle is an evolutionary adaptation; that over the eons oaks and other nut-bearing trees have developed an on-and-off mast cycle to ensure their reproductive survival. The theory makes sense. If oaks produced a consistently healthy crop of acorns every year, populations of nutloving animals would rise to the point where all the acorns would be eaten no matter how numerous. None would remain to grow into mighty oaks. The mast cycle solves the problem. During moderate to poor years, wildlife get by as best they can, seldom increasing and often decreasing in numbers. Then comes a good year, when the trees pour it on and produce far more nuts than the animals can consume, no matter how fast they reproduce. Nuts are left to germinate and renew the forest. Over the leaner years following, wildlife again dwindles to numbers too few to eat all of the next bumper crop. And so the cycle continues: The trees in effect keep nut predators at bay, like mother hens protecting their eggs." Don't have many acorns here this year. Got a lot of squirrels, though. Claire Here is a link that might be useful: Oaks, Acorns and You
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This is an old post, but if you still want to know about acorns here is the story Oaks in California are a masting species, this means that they produce large amounts of seeds in some years, and few to zero seed in other years. Many species mast, and the reasons for masting are not well understood. Some scientists believe that fruiting is caused by an environmental trigger related to temperature or water. One study showed that masting in another species of plant was related to seed predation by insects. In years of low production of seeds, seed predator populations decrease, and in high production years, the seeds get a chance to germinate because there are more seeds than pests. Generally with valley oaks, the amount of seed production will be pretty much the same throughout the entire species range, with a few exceptional trees producing acorns. But luckily for animals, often other species of oak such as coast live oak will produce its acorn crop in valley oaks bad years.
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If I sow a flat of acorns (even small ones like palustris) (30 seeds) I will usually have three or more that are of size to graft onto the following year. Of course they aren't whopping seedlings but they are near pencil thickness. The others may take one more year or two more years to catch up. It's genetic diversity... the strong and the weak. Adding to that, what a tree is pollinated with also improves or diminishes the the seed being produced. I'll be brief but if a Quercus rubra pollinated a Quercus palustris (Red oak and Pin oak) and if another pollen parent also got into the mix such as another smaller acorn in the Red oak family - giving two types of pollen to one tree, there will be varying levels of outcome of the seed produced. It's never a perfect equation where possibly Quercus rubra being larger gave it's pollen to the smaller Quercus palustris - but it is possible the seedling produced may make a faster plant with a larger "seed parent plant." Adding to that, the south and west side of trees get more sun and that results in a better seed being produced. I could show you how these relationships effect pecans. It's very noticeable and I will just leave it at that. Dax
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imscattered
Original Author
15 years ago
Sunnyca thanks for your thoughts. This helps me. It is pretty crazy to try to something with one acorn isn't it?? Wish I could have gathered more. These are food for thought!!
Scat
Adella Bedella
15 years ago
Check out this blog. There are a few cute things with acorns that may give you an idea. I think a small ornament based on something like the necklace at the bottom of the page might be a nice way to display it. You could attach some sort of hangtag with a poem or rememberence on it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Acorns
sunnyca_gw
15 years ago
After looking at size of most of those acorns Adellabedella listed site for, they are really small. I was thinking of large ones like some of trees out here have. The caps are about 2 in. across. If they are tiny sure won't fill up much space!! Maybe you could get a small glass domed stand & hang from little wire stand inside. Like dolls are sometimes placed in. Jan

acorn -preserve and display one acorn

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sunnyca_gw

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acorn -preserve and display one acorn

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sunnyca_gw

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