“Great things take time.”

That’s a motto that guides Laura Renninger’s efforts with the Garry Oak Society. The fourth-generation Oak Harbor resident founded the group last year to educate the community about the city’s namesake tree and to ensure they don’t someday disappear from the cityscape.

To that end, the Garry Oak Society and Whidbey News-Times are holding an essay contest, and the prizes are Garry oak trees for winners to plant in their yards.

Members of the group counted the Garry Oaks in the city — on both public and private property — to create an inventory. The information hasn’t been compiled yet, but what she saw gave Renninger reason for concern.

While there are hundreds of healthy oaks in the city, they are nearly all mature. Many of the trees that flourish in Smith Park and the east side neighborhoods have been there for a century or more.

The volunteers found surprisingly few oak youngsters.

That means, Renninger explained, that the uniquely gnarled trees, the behemoths with canopies of green, won’t be replaced as they age and die off, either naturally or from storms or chainsaw.

Until recently, neither the city nor residents have planted young Garry Oaks. The natural process of acorns sprouting and growing into trees doesn’t happen where lawns are mowed and gardens weeded.

Another problem, Renninger said, is that Garry Oaks are slow-growing, which doesn’t play well in a world of instant gratification. And it’s hard to find Garry Oaks at nurseries.

“When you plant a Garry oak tree, you are doing it for future generations,” Renninger said.

The city’s public works department spearheaded an effort to turn the city-owned Boyer property, at the corner of State Highway 20 and Fakkema Road, into a Centennial Oak Grove. Last year a hundred oak saplings were planted there; the 10-year-old trees were purchased from an Arlington nursery that’s going out of the Garry Oak business since they aren’t exactly moneymakers.

Over the weekend, many more seedlings in protective tubes were planted on the property.

The Garry Oak Society purchased the last of the trees from the Arlington nursery. In order to raise awareness and get more young trees planted on private property, the group is offering to give five of them away for free to the winners of an essay contest.

Whidbey residents are asked to write and share about their favorite Garry Oak and why they would like to plant a tree. Deadline is April 15.

A selection of the essays will be published in the Whidbey News-Times and winners announced before Arbor Day in April.

Essays can be sent to OHGarryOakSociety.org.

And all residents with a piece of land should consider planting Garry Oaks. The Garry Oak Society can help you find saplings.

Or consider growing one the old-fashioned way: Plant an acorn.