Oak Glades Farm

The President and chief tree nut of Oak Glades Farm is Jay Hill. Jay was able to purchase the farm in October of 2017 when he was offered a ridiculous amount of money for a different property in a different state. So ridiculous was this windfall in fact, that Jay was able to buy the property and also begin some modest improvements right away. Jay is dedicated to ensuring the orchard and the remainder of the property are restored to excellent condition and the trees are given the opportunity to flourish by thinning them out and at the same time offering these beautiful trees to you.

What Drives Us

These trees were originally planted to be “code” trees; that is, trees designed specifically for meeting codes requiring the planting of trees when developing a new subdivision or other construction project. Due to the decline of the housing market from 2007 to 2010, this orchard was abandoned. Luckily the trees have survived well and have grown into beautiful shade havens. They have now grown to a size larger than originally planned and they have since grown to be a hindrance to each other at only eight to ten feet apart. For the tree's health, we are now making them available to everybody!

The property where these awesome trees grow originally supported a citrus orchard. As tends to happen, the citrus orchard became diseased and the citrus orchard was completely removed in 2004-2005. The property was re-excavated and sloped for proper water drainage and the Darrington oaks were planted in stages of what appears to be three years. This has provided a wide variety of sizes to choose from.

At the time of planting, the housing market was booming and several subdivisions were under construction in surrounding cities. These trees were planted to fill the need for “code” trees. A “code” tree is any tree specifically designed, grown, and transplanted to meet landscaping codes for new construction. The choice of the Darrington oak was surely made due to its characteristics: they are tough, grow anywhere in hardiness regions 4-10, do not produce fruit every year (acorns in this case), provide a large shade canopy, and have minimal leafing. That is, they don’t shed leaves very often and are more of an “evergreen” style of oak.

Unfortunately, just about the time the trees were the perfect size for harvest and transplanting, the housing market declined sharply and the need for “code” trees declined with it. This led to the decline in the care of the orchard and it was eventually abandoned in 2008. The property was then left sitting with a large inventory of “farming leftovers” such as degraded tractor implements, overgrown or previously-cut brush, and general debris. Even orchard-tender housing was left to deteriorate. When purchased by another owner in 2014, a massive clean-up of the property was undertaken and all debris was removed. That owner began to develop the property for private residence purposes. After a couple of years of making some modest improvements, the owner’s goals changed and provided Oak Glades Farm the opportunity to purchase the property in 2017 and begin restoring and caring for the orchard again.

The timing of the purchase happened to coincide with Hurricane Irma where a lot of branches on the property’s non-orchard, old growth trees were sent crashing to the ground. Six months was spent processing this storm debris. As of October 2019, we’ve still have about 10 acres of storm debris to process and we’re making progress in both orchard and non-orchard parts of the property to promote the best growth possible. Efforts to care for the orchard are an on-going process of trimming/pruning and parasite control to ensure we are able to provide the healthiest trees possible. We will continue to update progress on the farm in our galleries and blogs. Stay tuned!