Well as for this question: " Next, I'll list reasons (the ones that come to mind right now) for and against introducing invasive plants." For the ones you list, 3 is a pretty good one. If it is already here, and already in a heavily altered landscape that will never be natural, then it is alright to use. Number 6 is good, too-since humans have changed everything, these invasive plants have found a niche in the new environment we have created. Nature has a hard time existing where I live, 95% of the county is in intense agriculture, 80% is plowed field of corn and soybeans, so sometimes people's views might be different because what they see on daily basis. Now with high prices of land and commodity prices, even the naturalized species are being destroyed, leaving less room even for the more adaptable species of animals.

Quercus x sternbergii I don't get this. I've hiked through native area nearby my house and I see both Q. shumardii and Q. buckleyi there. It is easy to tell apart by just looking at the buds of both. Q. shumardii has dominant large terminal bud with small lateral buds while Q. buckleyi has all equal sized buds which explains why they tend to have multiple trunks in the wild. I thought Q. buckleyi looked better with better red fall color than the other one. Q. buckleyi seems to be small, more dense and compact tree with smaller leaves and acorns while Q. shumardii seems to be signficantly larger and more open tree with larger leaves and acorns. I've seen big shumard and bur oak trees there at the creek bottom.

Dax, that December Red graft is looking GREAT! I wish I still had my graft. I have been too embarrassed to tell you but one random day in July of 2012 (nearly right after it was planted IIRC) I was out watering my trees and the December Red was GONE. Tag was still in the cage I had configured to keep critters out. I talked it over with Arktrees and abciximab (Patrick) from the conifer forum when it happened. Best we could tell a gopher pulled it straight down and ate it. I planted a white oak seedling in the same spot that fall and in spring/summer of 2013, the same exact thing happened; it flat out disappeared one day! Really weird. I would love to try it again if you have extras and pay you or buy some rootstocks for you or something. Broke my heart when I found out it was gone. I immediately suspected it was the neighbor's kids (it was located 20' from property line) but they are well behaved. I talked to their Dad about it and I am pretty sure it wasn't taken by them/someone else since it was so small. Come to think of it, this same thing happened all the way across my property to an acer barbatum seedling I planted. Maybe I am in a Bermuda Triangle of sorts!!!Very strange... Another plus to this selection, the leaves on mine emerged a very pretty red before turning green. This is a common trait with red family oaks but it was very noticeable on my specimen. John

I planted my biggest SCO about a decade ago, and it's now about 25' tall. Back in the spring I was walking underneath it, and I looked down and saw three seedlings, so apparently it produced at least a few acorns at only ten years old. I potted those seedlings up, so I'll be planting those in another few weeks.