Update: Saving McHenry County Oak Groves

February 4, 2008
The Chicago Tribune came out recently to our sister company Glacier Oaks Nursery to interview Joe and Mary about Project Quercus. The article ran today in the Tribune:

McHenry County coalition works to return oaks to full splendor
In McHenry County, coalition taking steps to restore shrinking forests
By Carolyn Starks- Tribune staff reporter

"The oak saplings at Glacier Oaks Nursery in Harvard are bundled like children in a snowstorm inside warm tunnels that will help them thrive until spring. They may look fragile, but their spindly branches carry a heavy burden.

Conservationists are counting on these baby trees as a small step in helping assure that mighty oak forests remain rooted in McHenry County..."

12/29/07
Another article on Project Quercus in McHenry County:
'County's Oak Population Getting Bare'
Northwest Herald, 12/28/07

The following is a breakdown of oak forest coverage in McHenry County by the year.
1838: 143,000 acres.
1872: 72,000 acres.
1939: 26,350 acres.
2005: 18,000 acres.

12/17/07
This month, an article titled 'Group Out to save McHenry County's Oak Groves' was published in the Daily Herald about the Land Conservancy of McHenry County's efforts to preserve oak groves through education, ordinances, and restoration.

"When 17th century French explorers first arrived in the area northwest of present-day Chicago, they marveled at the region's vast oak groves, writing that it was as if a higher power planted each tree individually to maximize their beauty.

Hundreds of years later, the beauty of those groves remains in what is now McHenry County, but ecologists fear that may not be the case for much longer.

With the increasing pressures of development, poor management and sparse efforts to replace dying trees, the number of oaks has fallen precipitously, down to just over 10 percent of what it was when European settlers arrived in the 1830s.

Fearing it may be now or never for McHenry County's oaks, a group of governments, environmental groups and arborists are banding together to save what's left.

"Not only have we cut down a lot of trees for construction, but a lot of what's left out there is sick and dying," said Lisa Haderlein, executive director of the Land Conservancy of McHenry County. "People are going to have to intervene to change the situation."

That was the philosophy behind the Land Conservancy creating Project Quercus (Latin for oak), a joint effort of nurseries, villages, state and federal agencies and tree-related businesses to save McHenry County's remaining oak groves."

Beeson's McHenry County Nursery and Glacier Oaks Nursery have been involved in Project Quercus and grow the oak seedling for planting at sites across the county. For more information, see TLC's Winter newsletter.