OP has delivered!!!!! Here are the pics I promised. I didn't read through all the comments again to see if I ever explained what I had done so I'll just do a quick shake down. I bought seedlings from the Idaho extension acorns from a website called acorno.com. I planted the seedlings in 1 gallon rootmaker pots, 3 gallon rootmaker bags, and some in my garden boxes. I planted the acorns in the little 2.5"x 2.5" rootmaker pots and a few in my raised beds. I planted bur, n. red oak, and a couple pin oak acorns. The seedlings were all bur oak. I build a little potting bench from scrap wood I had lying around and put all of my pots on top of that on the east side of my house. They get good sun until about 1300 hours then shade. The ones I planted in the garden boxes get full sun and there isn't great drainage so the box soil is basically always wet. (Its my first year with those so I have some work to do this fall/spring getting the drainage issues figured out.) We have had the hottest summer on record and have been in the mid 90's basically since the beginning of June. I have tried to water the potted plants every afternoon when I get home from work and have only missed a few days. As you can see, the small potted acorns have all died. I think that the pots were just too small to store moisture during the day heat and dried out before I could get to watering them after work. The 1 and 3 gallon potted oaks look great other than a bit of leaf scorch. The oaks planted in the raised beds seem to be doing just as well. They have some scorch but the little guys are green and have good leaves. I haven't gotten any real growth out of any of them. I'm not sure if its the heat, lack of water/ too much water, or anything else. I am not sure where to go from here. This was totally just an experiment but I need to decide what to do with them before winter. I have a spot in the back south west corner of my yard that is just dirt. I haven't gotten around to doing flowers there yet and have considered planting my oaks in tidy rows there to have them mature a bit and bare root them when they get 4-5 feet tall. I still haven't decided on that though. Here is a link that might be useful: Oak Seedling Album

i love oaks for gardening under ... no experience with this one.. what is the potential width.. and how far from the house are you considering ... newer sealed sewer lines.. or septic field?? no tree should be that close to a field ... i would not feed the hosta ever again.. if you want the tree to ignore them.. if you fert the plants under the tree... you can figure out where it will grow roots ... i wonder what the understock is ... my oaks.. love my hot dry sand.. i do NOT know if they will appreciate.. as a babe ... the wet black loam ... 6 hours of sun is not bad.. but it isnt that great.. i do NOT know the shade tolerance of oak ... just listing variables that come to mind .. good luck ken

I have a bur oak that i bought from lowes that I planted in Fall 2005. It was probably 5 feet tall. Maybe 4.5 feet tall for 5 gallon. It grew about 8 inches for 2006. This year, it has grown 2 feet already and is in its 2nd growth spurt right now. It's amazing how much growth it has put on this year. I was hoping for 3 feet of growth and it looks like I might get more than that with all the rain! I had shumard oak that REALLY GREW this spring after planting it in fall 2005. Unfortunately, that violent storm over a month ago snapped it in half. Looks like for 5-7 gallon, 4-7 feet height, it takes a year to establish roots before they really take off in 2nd year. I can confirm that oak trees grow VERY LONG TAPROOT. I planted a bunch of acorns in the small cups and didnt think about roots since they have grown only 3-4 inches. When i took them out of the small cups, i was shocked to see all those long tap root circling around in the cups. Lesson learned. It's best to air prune them! I am curious how fast oak trees grow when planted as an acorn. I probably will experiment with that on my "retirement" land (thats a long time away :( ) and there are area that I want to grow trees for privacy. There's no water there for me to water container trees so Im stuck with planting seeds or very small seedlings. Anyway, the oak trees that I grew in small cups last year hasn't really grown very much this year. I had to prune the tap root off. Apparently from reading about tap roots, they do not like their tap root pruning and will significantly slow the growth. Oh well.

In my experience which is just with a couple oaks, ( Burr and English) direct sowing where the tree is to grow is the best thing I know of. Those 2 trees are growing great, the Burr did about 4-5 ft in the 2 years from acorn sowing, usually after a transplant, the first year is about 5 inches max height growth, vs. 2-3 ft from acorn, no watering needed in a dry spell. The tree will be stalled for a year or 2 to replace the root mass, to resume the maximum growth in a potted tree. I have dug up trees about 1-2 ft tall in the past, and the oaks have such deep roots, I swear they went to China. I'm talking a 1 foot tall red oak Q. Rubra, with a root system that I never did find the end of, and I THINK the red oaks don't have as deep a taproot as a White oak family oak. You can get an oak in a pot and it will transplant fine etc. but, if you've got the acorn, you know where you want the tree, you are prepared to protect it from critters til spring, it just makes sense to direct sow, maybe refridgerate a spare acorn or 2. I guess if your in a critter riddled area, you've got no choice but to pot, but if you can direct sow, that is the best in my opinion. And I have a limited amount of experience, I would say about 20 years since I planted my first oak. The first oak I planted is about 40+ ft tall, and is putting out acorns, it is a Q. Rubra, or Q. Velutina, likely Velutina, no real fall color. I will add that Sycamores can lose a ton of roots and bounce back like nobody's business. Poaky1 Oh, I have a Q. Alba from an acorn but it in a lot of shade so only did a foot from acorn, but I'm talking nearly full shade, the tree that shades it is on it's way out likely within 10 years, and the Q. Alba can hang in there in shade til this other tree croaks. But of course all this I said is for my yard, and YMMV. Poaky1