For centuries, Wye Mills, Maryland, was famous for a legendary tree: the Wye Oak. It began its life before colonization, and across the centuries it saw the rise and fall of tobacco plantations, the Revolutionary War and Civil War, and the eventual modernization of the Eastern Shore. By the 20th century, it was widely acknowledged as the largest white oak in the United States. A state park was established at the oak in 1939. In 1940 the American Forestry Association named the Wye Oak one of its first National Champion Trees. The Wye Oak became a famous Maryland landmark and would stand for over 400 years.

Despite support of its massive limbs, applications of pesticide to protect it from insects, and fertilizer to keep it healthy, the Wye Oak would not last forever. The Oak lost a large limb in 1956, and again in 1982, a huge limb weighing more than 70,000 pounds fell. But it was a thunderstorm in 2002 that would close the long chapter of the Wye Oak’s life. High winds and rain felled the enormous oak.

Fortunately that was not the end of the Wye Oak story. Clones of the oak were made from grafts and acorns harvested from the tree before its collapse. One of our clients at Wye Gardens (fittingly, just outside of Wye Mills where the original oak once grew) had located a mature clone as part of the landscaping design for their new property, and wanted to install it in a place of pride right in the middle of a circular drive.

It required a bit of vision, but as a clone of the original Wye Oak, this tree had potential to transform over time into a huge, stunning example of living horticultural history. This clone’s location and the landscaping around it was intended to highlight the specimen in a place of pride, providing a fitting frame for the living descendent of an oak that watched centuries of Chesapeake history pass by.

The mature Wye Oak, planted just a mile from the location of the original tree by Wye Gardens

This is exactly the kind of work we are honored to do at Wye Gardens—creating timeless landscapes that will mature, generation after generation. Today, almost 20 years later, that sapling planted by Wye Gardens has grown into a healthy, thriving tree, sited at the head of a boulevard of trees as a stunning focal point. Though its life has just started, someday it, too, may bear witness to centuries of passing time, change, and transformation.

The Wye Oak Grows Again