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?

Yes to Rhizo and more generally, yes to identifying "pests and diseases", if actually present, before reaching for a control product. And yes too to the notion that by October, all manner of insect and fungi have had their way with leaves-temporary organs that the tree will reproduce next growing season-and that any control measures are quite likely to be unnecessary at this time. My gosh, if we were to panic about every landscape plant that has leaf blemishes in October.........we'd be a bunch of spraying nincompoops. Stuff is all beat up in the fall-this is normal! Please, let's not be applying pest control products outside of the growing season! To leaves that will soon be sloughed off by the plant! But do the work of identifying, so you know if there is any legitimate practice you should be undertaking, like raking up and composting all the leaves you can, that sort of thing.

Checking back in! Over the course of the months, the condition of both trees continued to decline: every time new leaves were put out, they all started to brown at the edges. (We planted another oak at the same time in the front yard, and that tree is 100% fine.) We made the decision to take them down, sadly. DH took the left one down to almost soil level about a month ago. I immediately 'treated' the bark/outer ring portion with Roundup. On a different day, he took the right tree down to about 3'. No Roundup applied to that one yet. How best to remove as much of the left stump as possible, so the grass can grow in? And if it wasn't a good idea to take the stump that low, we still have the opportunity to take a different approach with tree #2 (right). Thanks for any advice.

It's good to know that peeling bark is normal. I haven't observed that yet on this tree but I won't worry if it does start to do that. Regarding watering I've been watering it every day since planting. I couple days here I'll probably slow that down to every third day for a couple iterations and then go to a normal watering cycle of once a week. As of today there aren't any wilted are brown leaves so I guess it wasn't too shocked by all the root work I had to do. Regarding the mulch. I use planner shavings as mulch. They are inferior to normal large wood chunk mulch but are free and keep the ground moist. This planting I was running low on shavings and mixed in some shredded paper. I've read on line that paper shreds make a great mulch around trees. I find that it's not so great and tends mat down into a hard paper mache. So I mixed it in with the shavings and that seemed to work decently.