GROWING ALABAMA’S
SAND-LOVING OAKS
IN THE ARBORETUM
The Donald E. Davis Arboretum’s main botanical
collection has always been its oak trees. In 2005,
when the arboretum was admitted into the North
American Plant Collections Consortium, the
group suggested an expansion and completion of
the Sandhill Habitat by adding more rare species
of Alabama oaks, including underrepresented
scrub oaks. Scrub oaks are a common species one
sees near the coast, and they are often part of an
evergreen thicket, but can also be very sparse. The
scrub oaks provide the material for the transition
from the primary dunes topped with sea oats, to the
more inland maritime hammock habitat.
The existing Sandhill Habitat in the arboretum was
far too small to accommodate the additional oaks
and was