Pecan – The Iconic Tree of TX

It was along the banks of the Clear Fork of the Brazos that I first discovered the significance of Pecan trees.  On a crisp, fall Sunday afternoon, in the late 50′s, I joined my grandparents and the people of a small Jones county town, at their city park, shuffling through fallen pecan leaves picking up the small nuts of the native trees that lined the river and formed a forest of branches on that first terrace above the river bank.  While this was my first exposure to this autumnal ritual, it began near fifty years prior; peaking during the Great Depression years when nothing went to waste.  Most of the nuts were small, less than one-half the size of pecans I purchase at today’s farmer’s markets.  Whole families turned out to reap nature’s bounty–which had been scarce the previous year.  Most of the pickers cached their prize into burlap bags.  I was furnished a worn cotton pillowcase, which was most appropriate for my size and attention span.

As the afternoon sun dropped below the clouds on the western horizon, families gathered and loaded their bags into pickup beds or in the car trunks, or “turtlebacks” as they were referred to at the time.  Over the next few weeks, most of the nuts were shelled, some in halves, but most in pieces.  They later appeared in Thanksgiving and Christmas pies and pastries.  A select few, those with thin shells and of significant size, were planted in coffee cans in hopes of producing a spring seedling that could be planted in the yard.  Maybe, in the years to come, it would produce a crop of like nuts.

The ritual of pecan gathering was not unique to this west Texas, mostly rural community.  It was commonplace to all parts of Texas fortunate to be graced by the shade of native pecan trees.

Now, more than fifty years later, the urbanization of the State, the pecan industry, and the nursery industry, has changed how we view the pecan nut, and certainly the pecan tree.  Pecans, the nut, are available year-round.  Pecans, the tree, for the most part, are too.  Until the late 1970’s, the retail nursery industry  began selling bare-root pecan trees as soon as they received them from the growers, usually between mid-December and January, depending on when digging would begin and grading, packaging and shipping could be completed.  Since bare-root pecans were grafted to rootstock with a significant taproot and a few lateral roots, the expectant pecan owner would prepare a planting hole weeks ahead of the purchase on a mild winter weekend.  The purchase and planting of the tree in January or February was akin to getting a new pet.  Gardeners made their purchases as soon as trees arrived at the retail nursery, knowing well that once the season’s supply was gone, the wait for the next opportunity to plant was a year away.

In the 1980’s the nursery industry developed pecan tree containers, tall and narrow to accommodate the rootstock without being too heavy for the consumer to handle.  The transplant rate from container to garden transplant rate was more successful, and the consumer could now have a much wider window to planting time.  Serendipitously, the urbanization of Texas exploded, and the design of neighborhoods changed to larger homes on smaller lots.  The desire for pecan trees as landscape material began to diminish.  Today, as I drive through neighborhoods I can usually determine their ages by the number, or lack of, pecan trees.

Fortunately, the pecan is a rather resilient and urban tolerant tree, outliving many gardeners who carefully dug the hole, cautiously backfilling around the roots, laying the end of the water hose just inside the earthen treewell, standing back with pride and crossed fingers.  I thank them for the summer shade and the pecan pies.