Wow - nice collection!

I've gathered 2 things from this update:

1. I am not worthy

2. It is time for you to move to a more rural location and start planting your arboretum.

Congrats, everything is looking good!!

Pics thoroughly enjoyed!!!

Dax

What? .33 acres isn't enough room? Laugh. Yes, at some point many of these will need new homes. I plan on planting a few more in the yard and maybe removing a Live Oak or Texas Red Oak (plenty of those here). Luckily I have a friend who just moved onto acreage about 10 minutes away who's a bit of a tree geek too so I have a home in mind... There's also the possibility of planting them out in the greenbelts around my neighborhood (we're adjacent to a preserved wildness park too - I collect my Lacey Oak acorns in there from HUGE trees)

DAX - I took your advice found on here and acquired several of the Rootrainer flats for the acorns. Very handy. Might upgrade next year to the individual cell models.

I've spent far too much time reading up on the Mexican and SW oaks (hours and hours) and slowly parsed out what I thought would work in Texas. It can get cold here so many of the Mexican Oaks were iffy. I opted to try and find ones from higher elevations or the northern part of Mexico into the Southwestern US. I still have a "want list" if anyone can point me to sources:

Quercus: crassifolia, corrugata, sartorii, undulata, carmenensis, chihuahuensis, depressipes, graciliformis, havardii, hinckleyi, intricata, palmeri, and tardifolia appear like they might work. Then there's the "maybe list".... ha!

I'll continue with the picts as more trees start to leaf out.

This post was edited by mattm01 on Tue, Mar 25, 14 at 20:47

Thanks for the eye candy, Matt!

Man you must be in cold pocket or hole! I see just one day below freezing. Amazing what micro-climates can do.

The key will be on your soil type and heat. A few like Q. crassifolia, Q. emoryi, Q. graciliformis, Q. hypoleucoides and Q. rugosa live in cool mountain air. The California oaks also suffer from the humidity. The Asian and eastern oaks more than likely come from acidic soil. The native and Mexican oaks from the mountains from northeast Mexico seem to do best. The eastern Sierras are hot and humid like most of Texas. (but not as humid as y'all further east) Good luck!

Regarding the more eastern oaks and Asian Maples (save the Shantung) tried to find species that were closer to neutral soil than really acidic. If reports were strongly in the "prefers acid soil" then I passed. Same for water - They needed to at least be fairly drought tolerant. My soil appears to be "lightly alkaline" and the surveys I've seen indicate ~7.8pH

I live on the far NW side of SA and tend to average several degrees cooler than the city proper. Hoping that helps with the "cooler climate" needs of the higher elevation trees. Most did just fine last year and we hit 108 mid summer!

SA can get some humidity but it's less common than many think. Certainly not Houston! The "Dry Line" plays a dance with San Antonio all summer so we get dry days (lowest was 17% Humidity) and more humid days but certainly not like East TX or the Coast. I leaned towards the "inland" CA oaks as the coastal ones seems a bit to iffy.

It's really all a big "we'll see" and I enjoy that to some extent. If they "Work" - fantastic. If not, I'm out $15 and a few season of water. It's enjoyable to see all the variation while do have them!

Matt,

Nice pictures. Every time I see them it makes me think of my brother's backyard. He is growing a lot of trees and I've been doing the same thing in my back yard for years. I'll add a few that have been growing well so far this spring.

I have a lot of bald cypress trees, bald cypress/montezuma hybrid cuttings, Canby oak, Loquat Oak, Mexican White Oak, and other various trees in this picture.
{{gwi:335020}}

"Super Dragon" Shantung Maple
{{gwi:335021}}

Seiryu, two seiryu seedlings, regular JM seedling (front to back)
{{gwi:335022}}

"Skinny Dragon" shantung maple
{{gwi:335023}}

red JM seedling
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"Fire Dragon" shantung maple seedlings
{{gwi:335025}}

Thanks, I enjoyed the pictures of baby plants haha.
FWIW, almost all of the Mexican evergreen oaks at the NCSU arb. looked awful after the recent 20 year freeze, even though it only got down to 7F there. Of course a freeze that bad is far less likely down in San Antonio, you're almost in the tropics. But I think people should know to take the zn 7 rating some of them have with a grain of salt. Q. rysophylla, which I'd ordered from Camforest but switched for something else, might well survive indefinitely in zn 7, but I wouldn't want it if it looked awful at the end of every winter. In some sense I already have a plant in this ambiguous category: Quercus X turneri, which would remain evergreen in a maritime climate, but just turns gray-brown here in late Nov, and then drops its leaves by the middle of winter. A waste of space I'm still debating about whether to keep.

Very impressive Matt!

Watering during the summer is the hardest part so it requires a lot of patience having to water every day. I see that you got the irrigation system in place so that should help a lot.

Ltruett is my brother. We're always growing all kinds of trees...

Here is 'Super Dragon' Shantung maple that has best spring color of all I've tried.

Would all these trees, more or less, survive in-ground (after establishment of course) without irrigation in SA?

Just curious.

Wow, nice to see so many baby trees, and great pictures too (what camera do you use Mattm1?).

Methinks somebody(ies) on this thread have a tree addiction.

I have an assortment of trees and shrubs grown from seed here too (1.25 acres). Some were seedlings purchased or otherwise acquired, some were self-sown, some I've started from seed. It's so fascinating to watch them grow and note genetic variations!

Laugh - When I saw the Skinny Dragon from ltruett I thought, 'Man, that's a lot like Lou's trees'. My "regular" Shantungs have been "meh" and didn't like the really hot days. The "Fire Dragon" didn't miss a beat. That Skinny Looks great. Metro Maples is on my drive by list if I get up that way - wish I could mail order small ones.

- Hair - Truthfully, I have no idea which would survive on their own. Some of the eastern oaks I have my doubts although I did opt for more drought tolerant ones when I could. I suspect the Mexican and Cali/SW oaks would do fine given how little precip they see naturally. pH tolerance is also an unknown. The drip lines are connected to my 'tree zone' that also provides water to many of my larger landscape trees. I've backed down on the waterings this spring from last (many new 30g landscape trees went that previous fall so they need help the first summer or 3) Lacey, Bigelow, Texas Red and Live all grown naturally in the surrounding woods and it's DRY with little soil. Except for the maples, I tried to get as drought and heat tolerant as I could (caddo fits in here as well) back off on water for the oaks to see how they do.

Most pics are with a Nikon D7000. Some are iPhone when I don't bring out the big gun...

Couple more shots today (iPhone)

{{gwi:335026}}
Q. organensis

{{gwi:335027}}
Compton Oak

{{gwi:335028}}
Acer buergerianum

{{gwi:335029}}
More growth on Loquat Leaf Oak

{{gwi:335030}}
Mexican Blue Oak

{{gwi:335031}}
Turbinella Oak

{{gwi:335032}}
Chisos Red Oak

{{gwi:335033}}
Meléndrez Oak - I need to get more info on this one. Seems to be an evergreen version of the Chiso Red or something like that.

{{gwi:335034}}
ShuWillow Oak - Q. x moultonensis

This post was edited by mattm01 on Wed, Apr 2, 14 at 0:38

Waiting for those fall colors this year mattmo1. Very nice seedlings!

Pretty impressive that they survived a winter down into the teens still aboveground in their POTS! B)

BTW, how do you post multiple pics in the same post?

have seeds/seedlings of crassifolia, graciflformis, and a number of other oaks---if interested email me "dismalvista(at)yahoo(dot)com.