Kind of a big deal

[Jeff]

At least personally, after watching this property evolve over the last couple years. Tens of thousands of acorns have been raked out of yards and brought up here and scattered over all twenty some odd years. Hundreds have been tratified and planted, but never had there been one sighting of one oak tree until just now! 

 I'm kinda stoked by something that would just get mowed off in the yard in Harrison without the least bit of consideration.   

I know, it's just one oak tree, but wouldn't it be something if its still growing when I'm gone? 



 

 

[SunnyHillFarm]

I have to put a wire cage around mine in W N Y or the deer will keep them nibbled down.

[Magicman]

Now is the time to transplant it to wherever you want it to grow, and I agree, a wire cage will keep the deer, etc. from biting the top off.

[B.C.C. Lapp]

It would indeed be something. Jeff we totally get it.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, cage it, it will do great. And so will you.

[thecfarm]

Never really gave that a thought, about oak trees. I have 1000's of them.
But try to find a small cedar tree on my land?
My MIL wanted some cedar broughs for a window box. Sure I said, I have plenty. 
I found out, after walking over where I have cedar trees, that I have none that I could reach. All my cedars are big trees, no small ones can be found. I had to get a ladder to get some limbs!!!

[Jeff]

 

 

[Old Greenhorn]

There ya go!

[nativewolf]

Wow...throw a cage around it and that seedling grew quick!  Must be those long Michigan summer days.  

[Autocar]

Last fall I had a Red Oak that hangs over the house dropping hundreds of acorns and they rolled off the roof onto the deck. I had a gallon bucket in the shop and planted fifty in my garden. The chipmonk's carried off the gallon bucket but. But the ones I planted in the garden came up and some of them are pushing eight inches which surprized me . I  figured one joint a year but a few of them are three joints high. Around the house there coming up and I mow around them thinking that I will dig them up and give them away when they get bigger. One of the first years that they wasn't wormy. My bur oaks last fall didn't have many acorns but normal years there loaded my white oak seem always are wormy. A number of years ago I cut a white oak job and I parked under a white oak that evening you could not see the color of the bed there was so many acorns in it. And the floor of the woods was green like a yard there was so many little white oak growing. I should go by there some time and see if there still growing or got shaded out by faster growing trees.

[Jeff]

Another discovery, growing now in the area mulched last year. 



 

[SwampDonkey]

My problem with red oak seedlings is snowshoe hare will cut every one off. They keep resprouting, and get cut off. Then when I have pole sized red oaks that are big enough to produce acorns, the bears move in and play like monkeys for those acorns. You can't win. Gotta have thousands to get a few. :D

I have not been out on the woodlot a few weeks and I can just imagine the lean to tarps are now all torn up by the bears. Going to be using tin instead. :D

Never see milkweed around here. But up at grandfather's it grew in the ditches. I have seen old marginal fields grow up in it across the river.

[Al_Smith]

For some reason unknown to me some oaks in spite of dropping a zillion acorns don't sprout .That 5 acres of huge 100 foot white oaks I just bought I see nothing below them except sprouts from believe it or not ash trees but no oaks .Perhaps because below those huge canopies the sunlight doesn't reach the ground?? On the other hand along my 600 foot driveway  are a couple of pin oaks and those reseed .

[barbender]

That is odd. Oak doesn't grow all that well on my property (silly sand soil). Bur oak does ok, the red oak has really poor form. But they sure sprout well, maybe the difference is I am constantly opening up new areas and scratching mineral soil open?

[SwampDonkey]

The trouble with oak, it's less tolerant to shade compared to maple. Walk into a sugar maple stand and your walking over the top of a lot of seedlings, which won't do much until they to get more light. Beech on the other hand will take over the understory if there is seed.

I've got a white oak in full sun on the lawn I planted in ~1984. It came from NH as a seedling. It's 10" across at breast height, but no taller than 30 feet. It has flowered before. Trouble is, late frost up this way can do them in. And this tree is 300 miles north of it's home range.  Dud nuts get pea size and drop to the ground. Otherwise the tree is healthy and has scarlet red leaves in fall. Where as red oak native around here turns yellow and quickly turns brown.

[Al_Smith]

We have several varieties of oaks .Burr, white ,northern  red and pin .On my property the white is most plentiful . 

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, this white oak is Q. alba and the red oak here is Q. rubra. We have bur oak, but it's not a common tree, a bit rare. Even red oak is mostly in small stands, and small regions or river corridors. You can drive for miles in the deep woods and never see an oak.

They once had a program here to plant bur oak around on woodlots. Same thing happened to them as red oak, the hares ate them all. :D

I've got coyote and lynx around, but the hares have the upper hand. ;D

[thecfarm]

I have 1000's of red oak on my land. And I do mean 1000's. But that is the only oak I have too.

[Al_Smith]

As I've said before this area of Ohio was once thick hard woods .If you let the land lay fallow long enough it will again turn back to that .The nut trees ,hickory and walnut I think get planted by the squirrels.The wind blows the maples .I think where ever the acorns fall they just get eaten up .Ground hogs really get fattened up by them in years the acorns have a heavy fall . 
I haven't yet taken a walk about on the front 2 acres of the 5 acre patch I just bought which was farm land at one time .I did notice some walnuts and hickories but have not noticed oaks .However it's thick and likely from a distance I could not be certain what is in that jungle .Plenty of raspberries and grape vines that I do know .The birds plant those .