Just do a tip pruning on your taller one-it'll naturally start branching out.I'd wait until late march to do this,and fertilize it at that time as well.A time release fertilizer will work well,but don't use too much of it. Oaks make excellent Bonsai subjects,and are relatively easy.Don't over fertilize them or you'll get a lot of weak growth and it'll look rangy.Feel free to contact me any time if you have any other questions.DJ~omniphasic@yahoo.com

@formandfoliage: Enjoyed the related Frost poem. Thanks! It's in the public domain in the US, so have provided a link in case others are curious. @ken_adrian: I've observed similar differences even around our relatively small city lot and agree that most variations in leaf coverage we see at any moment among the same type trees are likely explained by your points. The difference with our specific tree is not that it drops its leaves a few days or weeks after the other deciduous oaks, but that it holds them until the Live Oaks drop theirs in the spring. This additional 3 or 4 months of dead leaf retention seems to be a difference in behavior beyond what you've been speaking of in the more general case. I made a foot search and found an older tree with the same marcescence in a cul-de-sac I rarely visit. It's actually not that far from us through the trees and over the rooftops as the squirrel runs, so could be our tree's parent. I can't tell one red from another this time of year, but will take a stab at it once things leaf out and see if any of the currently bare neighbors are also Shumardii. Here is a link that might be useful: Reluctance by Robert Frost (1913) This post was edited by bostedo on Wed, Feb 27, 13 at 17:50

Shumard certainly does great around here in DFW. For a while, it used to be a big problem with the seed source being from the east that can't grow in alkaline soil. I was a victim of it. I know now what to look for. I saw all of those trees at the nurseries lately and it seemed that they have fixed that problem. How prone are they to oak wilt? I don't know. I see great big red oak trees around here so I wouldn't call it a problem yet but it may have more to do with how you treat the trees. Organically cared for, properly watered, etc might do better than heavily dependent on chemicals, poor water management, etc. Chinkapin oak is a great oak with ugly fall color. I don't know about Lacy Oak mainly because of super slow growth based on my observation at my neighbor down the street. Perhaps poor maintenance or badly girdled? After several years, I don't think it even topped total growth amount of a foot. I had Shantung maple that was the same size of that tree 3 years ago is much bigger now. Mexican white oak (alternative evergreen oak to live oak for oak wilt resistant in central Texas), Canby oak (evergreen red oak, bald cypress (central Texas source, not eastern if you can find one ), Montezuma cypress (more evergreen cousin of bald cypress)are others for you to try out. What kind of soil do you have?

shortleaf2002, that photo looks like the damage I see on many of the maples and other soft wood trees in our area. One of my oaks that is growing with a main leader trunk all the way up had lateral branches, growing off its trunk, broken about 4 feet way from the trunk. Non of them have stripped bark along the part of the branch which was not broken. Also none of the main leader trunk has bark stripped, off like seen on the modified leader trunk in your photo. I am concerned that once all the broken branches of my oaks are pruned back to the break, the side branches will look pretty strange with the short lengths of branches which remain undamaged between where they attached to the trunk and the four feet further-out pruning. My other 30 year old Shumard has a modified leader trunk starting about 8 feet up. On that tree, once the needed massive corrective pruning job is done, this might present a good time to try and shorten one of the leaders so a better main leader can develop. Of course the tree specialist, might tell me it is too late to try such a correction on the tree. I have noticed that all three of my Shumard oaks are most heavily damaged on their north and northeast sides. My Scarlet oak is not protected by any other trees or building on it's north, west or east sides. There is a two story house just 40 feet to the South of this oak, and an enormous cottonless cottonwood tree in the back yard of that neighbor's house, that cottonwood tree is southeast of my Scarlet oak, It does not make sense that the cottonwood or the two story house would have sheltered my Scarlet oak to prevent it from suffering damage. Especially since my 8-9 foot tall Green Giants growing near, in a East west line, but still just south of the Scarlet oak, collected so much ice that their tops bent over toward the north all the way to the ground from the weight of all that ice. That indicates to me that my Scarlet also must have collected as much ice on its north and east sides as my Shumards. Still it's side branches that come off its main leader trunk did not break at all. All around town, I see other shumard oaks with the same type of side branch damage as I have described mine. So that also leads me to think that the damage my shumards suffered was not specific to just my three shumards. Late yesterday afternoon our electricity was restored, and we checked out of the hotel and returned home this morning. Since returning home, I have been busy cleaning out my refrigerator and doing laundry, my DH spent the day at work, and so we have not had time to do anything to the trees yet. Tomorrow it is predicted to rain and Saturday predicted to snow about 2-4 inches. Hopefully, if I am not being unrealist, we can at least do the corrective pruning on my damaged trees by next week, several days prior to Christmas.