The Understory: Restoring Our Oak Savanna

Winter has a way of revealing things.  When the leaves fall and the landscape quiets, you begin to see the bones of the land more clearly—the undulating slopes, the lines of the ponds, and the towering presence of the bur oaks that have watched over Century Oaks for generations.

Many of these oaks, "the old ladies" as I sometimes call them, have stood here for centuries. If you stand beneath one and look closely at the branches, you notice how their limbs don’t grow in straight, simple lines. The bark is thick and weathered, and the branches stretch out in crooked lines shaped by seasons we will never know and storms they have quietly endured. When the light filters through them, it’s easy to imagine those limbs as the hands of wise old caretakers, still reaching across the land.

Looking back through old photographs from when my grandparents purchased this land nearly thirty years ago, one thing became strikingly clear: the landscape has changed more than anyone realized. Areas that were once open oak savanna have slowly filled in. 

 

Curious about how significant the change was, I tracked down aerial imagery of the property dating back to 1937 and created a time-lapse showing the land over the decades. Watching it unfold was remarkable. For many years, the oaks stood in open savanna, their broad crowns spreading freely. Then, in what feels like the blink of an eye, the woods began to close in and swallow them.

Without grazing animals or regular disturbance, opportunistic species like buckthorn, boxelder, and honeysuckle have taken hold. Over time, they have become massive, crowding the understory. Competing with the oaks for sunlight and preventing airflow. As a result, our grand old bur oaks have been quietly struggling. With dense brush and invasive trees pressing in, many of their lower limbs have died back. The breeze that once strengthened them has been blocked, and the sunlight that once reached their spralling limbs has grown scarce. I remember my grandma and grandpa driving around in the golf cart, my grandma leading the charge to tackle the vines crawling up the trees. The battle was nearly impossible, especially for an elderly couple in their eighties. 

Weekend after weekend, we’ve continued that work of cutting and clearing.  Removing invasive trees, pulling heavy grapevines down from the tops of the oaks, and cutting back poison ivy that has creeped up trunks over decades, now 7 inches thick in some places. Much of our effort has focused on opening the understory beneath the oak crowns and removing female buckthorn trees that scatter thousands of seeds across the ground each year.

 

And with each clearing, another oak emerges. Each of these trees are enormous, wide, sculptural, and full of character. Seeing them again, showcased and freed from the brush that had crept up around them, has been one of the most satisfying parts of this process. 

This past weekend, our good friend Mark came to the rescue with his wood chipper, helping Jason, my Dad and I tackle the towering brush piles we had built throughout the past month. What once was an overwhelming tangle of branches is now becoming mulch for the trails that wind through the property.

The work, of course, isn’t finished- there is a lifetime of work here as we tackle each section. For the areas we've cleared, next comes the slower phase: grinding down stumps to prevent regrowth and preparing the land beneath the oaks for restoration. Our goal is to reintroduce native savanna grasses, sedges, and wildflowers, plants that once thrived here.

Long-term, we are exploring the possibility of reintroducing grazing animals to help maintain the savanna naturally. Until then, we’ll rely on consistent mowing and continued stewardship to keep the understory open.

One by one, these majestic old ladies are stepping back into the light.  And with every tree we rediscover, the landscape begins to look a little more like the one that first captured my grandparents’ hearts.

The work is massive, but it has also been deeply rewarding and a beautiful transformation to witness.