Hi Poaky,

I don't have a single Live oak here. Last winter's grafts of a very hardy tree that had gone thru -18 didn't take. My friend's grafts didn't either. The scionwood was not healthy.

This year another entire flat of Quercus georgiana didn't pop. I had planned on sending one of those to you. Still waiting on my libani to do something and my libani x cerris. No luck with some really cool hybrid oak seeds, too. Blackjack x willow, etc- etc- etc-. I'm going to hope they pop, yet.

All my 2012-2013 greenhouse grown oaks are toast. My entire crop for selling on ebay and for understock use. During one of the coldest nights of this winter I had shingles fly off my roof and then thru my hoophouse shredding the poly. I don't think that's what killed them, I think they were already dead. I rushed them into my basement for the last two months of winter, and, nothing. S*** out of luck.

Dax

Sorry that those other oak grafts etc didn't pan out. Out of 3 "late drop" live oaks in my yard I am feeling good about 2 of them. One is up from the rootstock, the other has nice buds, plump and pink, they are slowly maturing. My Compton's oaks are doing fine. After looking at the Williamsburg, Va Compton's oaks compared to the Champion Live oak in Williamsburg, Va I must say their trunks look the same. The only thing that looks different is the leaf texture. If you look at the 2 trees. The CHAMPION LIVE OAK and the CHAMPION COMPTON"S OAK in Williamsburg, Va. They are NEARLY Identical, Besides the leaf texture. The Burr oak you sent acorns for is 26 " at least, not 18" as I thought. That is as of yesterday, without a spring growth spurt yet. I will load some pics in a few weeks.

Right on.

Dax

Dax, and anyone else I am going to post a pic of the Burr oak from Dax's acorn now before much growth, it may have put out 5 inches so far {{gwi:379330}} And one of my largest Compton's oaks {{gwi:380655}}

Nice Comptons - I want one...

Seems like most oaks grow like this:

Year 1 from acorn - few inches to maybe 2' at best
Year 2 - very little growth - max a foot, usually Year 3 - similar to year 2 but adds some caliper
Year 4 - starting to grow a bit...a foot or two
Year 5 - really takes off (1-2' if a slow grower, 2-3' if fast)

Hairmetal, I have 3 Compton's oaks. The one pictured is the oldest. I am not sure of the age of the tallest Compton's oak but 3 years from transplanting from the nursery is what i am guessing. The seedlings of Compton's oaks that i first planted were about 2 years old. i am guessing by their size of 2 ft . The Mossy oaks natives nurseries are sold out currently of Compton's oaks. But, Hairmetal, you are on the east coast. In the fall if you make a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Va and in the late summer/ fall under the Champion Compton's oak tree. You collect acorns you can start some Compton's oaks for yourself or others. If you never do this, I have heard that they bear seed/acorns in about 8 years, so in 2018, mine will have acorns. Surely Mossy oaks natives nursery will have trees available in fall of 2014 or spring of 2015. It is possible that near the Compton's oak there are areas that sell seedlings of these champion trees. I would love to visit this area. Well, I guess checking in the fall at Mossy oak natives nurseries is the fastest way. Unless you go under the Champion Compton's oak in Williamsburg, Va in fall. All 3 of mine have 3 to 4 ft to them already at least. If my Live oaks all fail miserably I will be planting Compton's oaks . It is too late to send bareroot trees now anyway. But really, hairmetal, I would go to the Mossyoak natives site, and rexserve an order for Compton's oak how ever many you want. Or go to Williamsburg, Va and collect acorns before you get caught by the official peeps who collects them.

Definitely like that Compton's.

These are the acorns I believe I sent because I also had egg-shaped acorns that year.

Wabash Valley, IL Mac's (Clark County)
{{gwi:380656}}

The parent tree for the Clark Co. Mac's
{{gwi:380658}}

The egg-shaped Mac's from (Lawrence Co.)
{{gwi:380660}}

I probably sent both.

Dax

Hi! I went to the Compton's Oak in Williamsburg, (10/19) but there were very few acorns left. I only got 5 and I don't think all of them are fertile. It was amazing how few were left -- virtually none on the ground and very few left on the tree. (Saw one squirrel who acted like he was going to race us to the last ones. :/) The acorns I got are not as big as the ones in the photos above from IL. I will try them and plan to go earlier in the fall next year.

Look at this acorn from Fred Blankenship. This was a small one he sent last year. Getting some nice bigguns here in the next few weeks from him. This is the "Crestwood" acorn.

This post was edited by treebird on Sat, Nov 1, 14 at 8:21

Wow. That is huge. Those acorns do not look anything like the acorns we picked from the Compton's Oak in Williamsburg. I understand that there is some variability in Compton's Oaks, but our acorns are quite different. We picked them directly from the Compton's Oak tree in Colonial Williamsburg.

Clanross, There is some confusion here. Dax has Burr oak acorns in his hand in the pics, Q. Macrocapra. I assumed he had a Compton's oak or 2, which he doesn't have. I have several Compton's oaks in my yard, there are no Compton's oak acorns shown in the pics in this post, though. So the giant acorns in Dax's hand are those like he sent me and likely a few others on here, Burr oak acorns. The tree in the above pics in my yard are from those giant acorns in Dax's hand, and the one with his grama (likely) with the source tree of the big acorns, a Burr oak. So I was wrong, he has no Compton's oak. I hope I explained it well.

Clanross, I sorta screwed that one up a bit. The second tree, the taller one, without the pipe around the trunk, is one of my Compton's oaks, no acorns pictured for it though.

treebird,

Would you post photos of several leaves?

Thanks,

Dax

I don't have any photos of leaves but I will have better photos of the nuts when they are shipped to me.

What I am able to see and is not much of the leaves in your above photo have lyrata appearance (possible partial hybrid)... I'm not saying those acorns are not true macrocarpa, I just wanted to see for myself.

Dax

Well the previous photo of the acorn, Fred calls "Crestwood" here is three other bigguns. One is a swamp white oak/ burr oak hybrid, the middle one is called "Overflow Pond" and the last one is a seedling of "Crestwood" not overflow pond as I wrote down on the piece of paper.

Here's a slightly different angle.

Usually those big acorns are found along river bottoms for we in the midwest. There are some I have not seen yet in a county north of me that Gary Fernald told me about.

Appreciate the pics.

Dax

Treebird, I have 'Kreider' burr oak from OIKOS. Acorns not huge, but no bitterness. I tried one this fall and it tasted similar to one of my hazelnuts. Shown below after 9 seasons -- not much fall color but a sturdy, handsome & fast-growing oak:

Well Fred sent me more giant acorns. He said what I don't plant I should sell online. I planted a select few but I have to admit I'm more of a hickory and pawpaw man. I'd hate for them to go to waste.

Fred said when he went to the original "Crestwood" acorn tree the old woman who had this giant tree showed him acorns that that were over 2 inches across from years when it had a lighter crop. That's acorns with the cap removed!

Nice acorns Treebird. I am not sure how the resultant trees are different from the larger Burr oak acorns, and the regular sized ones are. The acorns from Dax, I'll say 2 years ago, has resulted in a nice stocky Burr oak, about 3-4 ft tall. Really great for a supposedly slow growing oak.