describe why you think it doesn't look good.. for late September .....

i would kill the grass and put a 3 to 4 foot mulch ring around it ...

whats your soil?
how often is it watered?
how long has it been there ?
is there any lawn care products applied to the lawn .. like fertilizer or weed killer?
any possibility of overspray from neighbors from any type of sprays?
any extreme weather this year??? too hot.. too wet .. too dry ...

ken

Weedeater and/or lawn mower damage to the trunk of trees can cause problems for trees, especially young ones. I believe that we can see such damage to your tree.

Some turfgrass species have an allelopathic effect on the roots of trees, as well. Of course, turf competes with tree roots for water, oxygen, space, and dissolved nutrients in the soil.

Those are part of the reasons why we recommend that you give as much territory as you can to a mulched layer (3 inches or so deep) around the tree. The farther out from the trunk you mulch, the greater the benefit to the tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:431139}}

Sorry... it's been in the ground almost 2 years now. No other issues that I am aware of. I'm in Allen (Dallas). I assumed it may just need more water... but the spots on the leaves, etc lead me to believe maybe there is another problem?

As for hitting the trunk while doing lawn work... I mow around the tree and pull out grass that's against it rather then using a weedeater.

Thanks for information thus far...

The tree appears to be planted too deeply. You should be able to see the root flare that is where the roots began to flare away from the trunk. Start digging until you see the root flare. That amount of soil must be romed from the roots of the tree. Too much soil will effectivly smother the tree.

The leaves look fine to me, considering it's the end of summer. I agree with rhizo, at some point in time something scraped the trunk. Looks like a Shumard oak (possibly Nuttall oak) which are fast growing, so hopefully the wound will close up next year. As already said, spray the grass under it lightly with RoundUp, wait a few days and then apply a layer of mulch.

It is still summer in the DFW area and the days are still in the 90ties. Never,never spray Roundup on the root system of a tree unless you want to really kill it. Very stupid advice.

I didn't say to saturate the soil with RoundUp, I said to lightly spray the grass with it. I spray RoundUp around my trees several times a year to keep grass away and have never killed a tree. Many others here do the same thing.

Texasredhead, you might want to familiarize yourself with Roundup a bit more. This is recommended by professionals the world over and done on a regular basis at arboretums and botanical gardens without ill effect. Properly applied, Roundup does much more good than not.

I never use the stuff as I keep my property 100% organic. I certainly don't need Roundup to keep the ground clear around my trees. "recommended by professionals the world over", what a bunch of bunk!

Texasredhead, just because you choose to keep your property 100% organic (using no man made material whatsoever), that doesn't mean that you have a right to say that other Gardenweb member's advise is "very stupid". As a matter of fact, doing so is VERY RUDE!

Also, I am wondering why you think your advise is more correct than thousands of people who maintain gardens professionally or researchers who spend their professional life studying things like the use of glyphosate. What are your credentials?

Brandon7,

They said DDT was safe. Look what happened...

They said smoking was safe. Look what happened...

See the pattern? People are greedy and they will do anything to make $$$. They will just come up with different chemical replacing round up before anyone realizes how toxic it is. You just never know...

Mike,

Oaks are generally pretty tuff and do a good job in general dealing with pests and disease without much help. Sometimes pests and disease will strike a perfectly health tree, but most of the time they strike when the tree is stressed to start with. Eliminating these stresses may be the most helpful thing you can do for your tree.

The first thing I would do is to follow Alabamatreehugger, Rhizo_1, and Ken's advise. Like Rhizo_1 said, "give as much territory as you can to a mulched layer (3 inches or so deep) around the tree." Don't use plastic or landscape cloth and don't pile mulch up against the trunk. While working with the tree, check for potential problems such as soil moisture problems and planting depth. The soil shouldn't stay waterlogged but should be moist at a depth of around 4 to 6 inches. If your area is in a drought condition, watering well about every 5 to 6 days (depending on the soil) should be enough. The best way to tell if the tree is planted too deep, is to CAREFULLY remove soil around the trunk until you encounter the first root. The soil around the tree should be just covering that root. If you have to dig down more than an inch or two, the rootball is too deep. In that case, careful/gentle removal of the excess soil may help the tree. Don't leave the top of the soil so that it holds water in a bowl shape if you do have to remove some soil. Be sure that there is a low point where excess surface water can drain.

If you feel that further information about the tree's condition is necessary, take a leaf or small branch with leaves attached to your county extension office and let them evaluate it or contact a certified arborist. Be leery of arborists that recommend a lot of expensive services like regular fertilizing and maintenance requiring them to come out and send you more bills.

Lou,

That's true, BUT Roundup has been studied extensively compared to DDT. It is probably among the safest (environmentally speaking and on a dose-per-dose basis) chemicals used my man. Anything (including soap, deodorant, well water, city/tap water, motorized vehicles, pavement, almost any kind of food, our grass covered yards, etc.) can pose a potential problem to our health and the environment. One must use reason to determine what course to take. Without glyphosate, food supplies in the US and most parts of the world would be completely different than they are now. We would either have to TOTALLY revolutionize our current farming methods or starve. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't move towards other farming methods, but I am saying that using Roundup around Mike's tree couldn't possibly (relatively speaking) hurt the overall environment. I'll join you in believing that more environmentally friendly living should be a very high priority for everyone, but I certainly won't stop using Roundup. Going out to eat at McDonalds is orders of magnitude more dangerous.

Besides all that, it doesn't seem that texasredhead's comments were aimed at avoiding chemicals dangerous to the overall environment. The health of the tree it's self seemed to be the concern. Except for rare/unlikely circumstances (root zone saturation, fresh open root wounds, chemical volitization with no wind to remove the vapor from around the tree), Roundup poses very little to no danger to the tree. The benefits to removing the turf around the tree would far outweigh the possible disadvantage of using Roundup. There are other methods but none with clear advantages.

For a young tree so recently planted, I don't think there's too much wrong. Oaks are awkward-looking in their early years. As others have noted, you have grass too close to the trunk and it may have been wounded by lawn maintenance. Kill the grass for a four-foot diameter and cover with an organic mulch.

'Kill' can be Roundup, but you can also tear out the sod, or do what I do: smother the grass with wet newspaper (5 sheets thick) and top that with a good five inches of mulch. Make sure the mulch doesn't touch the tree trunk.

A grass-free zone around your tree assures no competition for water and nutrients.

Depending on how big you make the mulch circle, soil type, etc., the newspaper plus 5" of mulch may not be good for the tree's roots. This combination would limit the soil's ability to breath. With a small diameter bed, it probably isn't much of a problem because some air can enter from outside the mulched area. If, however, you were making a larger bed, this layer would be equivalent to burying the rootball too deep.

Mike, The leaves reveal fairly well that our tree is not a Scarlet or Shumard oak, instead, they also obviously reveal that your tree could be a form of red oak, but for certain not a type of white oak.

List of some red oaks follow

Pin oak (Which the tree in the photo appears not to be)
shumard oak ("")
Sarlet oak ("")
Northern Red oak ("")
some interior live oaks ("")

both the Quercus 'Nuttallii' and the tree that is known in Texas as the Quercus 'texana' probably are somehow involved in the parentage of your tree.

If the last statement is true than your tree should be quite tolerant of clay soils in PH level ranges around 5-9. This last conclusion is further supported by the aspect that the tree in the photos is planted in your alkaline soil which is made even more alkaline by rain water when it runs off of your cement driveway onto the soil so close to where your tree is growing.

As to the possible reasons it is now stressing.

1) "Almost two years" since it has been planted, is not long enough for a tree that size to have become fully established.

2) During the last almost two years your area has had prolonged drought problems for most of the early root establishment time for your tree. Even though the tree has been breed to withstand dry conditions, it will not endure drought as well, until it becomes much better established.

3) The tree is planted in a bed of what now looks to be bermuda grass. Bermuda grass roots rush to deeply invade fertile rootballs of newly planted trees. Those invading grass roots steal both the trees needed moisture and soil nutrients.

Bermuda can also grow so thickly over the rootflare of a newly planted oak that in a very short time they completely cover that rootflare, and especially if the tree's bed has settled a bit, allows dirt and small pieces of leaf and grass litter to collect around the rootflare. Result: over time the tree's, once just at the soil line, rootflare begins to appear covered up and smothered.

The good thing I can see is how well your more recent spring and early summer rains has seemed to restore the lower branches of you tree, even if it was not adequate enough to restore the tree's growth above that.

I want to add a couple things in response to Katrina's post...

1) I am not really a big fan of cedar mulch esp the fresh ones because they seem forever to break down. I like Garden Plus hardwood mulch from Lowe's the best of all the mulch bags I've tried.

2) if you plan on using round up, please put down 1 inch layer of compost at least five feet wide before putting down mulch.

3)OPTIONAL.. Before putting down mulch, I like to spread a mixture of greensand,lavasand, soybean meal, alfalfa meal/pellet and cornmeal thinly over the compost to provide nutrients and food for microbes to speed up the process of improving soil underneath the mulch.

4) I'd stay away from chemicals other than round up. They do more harm than you think. I know Katrina means will but I think it will just make it worse by destroying soil biology under the mulch so avoid that tree and shrub systemic product. If you do what I recommended, there is no need for that chemical product. Go to untouched forest... Observe the forest floor. Notice how soft and crumbly the soil is under the leaves? That is what you want to mimic for your tree.

I would focus first on exposing root flare that I have already explained in another forum.

Katrina1 gave you great advice and pointers. Expose the roots, and your problem will go away. I don't have anything else to add to your particular question. I just wanted to tell TexasRedHead that I am about to double the amount of pesticide I use for a month to try and kill spiders (all my pesticides are synthetic), then I am going to dump a gallon of diesel mixed with gasoline on the sidewalk to kill some grass, and then I am spreading 2000 lbs of synthetic fertilizer on my property. And you know what? It's not going to cause anybody to grow a second head or a 3rd eye. People like Texasredhead need to move back to California and stop bothering normal people.

Lou thanks for contributing the compost information. I know that Cornmeal is very effective when applied to the 'Palmetto' St Augustine grass. My son inlaw tried the fertilizer chemicals the first year, and was not very happy with the result, The next fall the Cornmeal applied like you suggested and horse manure compost applied later showed a dramatic improvement over the chemical fertilizer/weed killer he used first.

The virgin clay soil that was on the lot where my daughter's house was build was nearly white hardpan. And then I saw that their builder only layed down sand as a topsoil. That really stressed me, because I know the light color I saw in her clay soil must indicate that it must be nearly void of humus and also void of many important nutrients that trees and shrubs need. Because of that we made the landscaping beds with well processed horse manure compost, and when he applied that same compost and at the right time put down the cornmeal, my son-in-law ended up with one of the nicest looking yards and landscaping on the block.

Too bad they moved back to OK the next year, and no longer can enjoy that. I say that, because now most of the yards in our area are full of that horrible weed called bermuda grass. Too bad the 'Palmetto' ST Augustine grass is not hardy enough for our borderline USDA Zone 6b/7a

I have a friend who's Bermuda grass is worse than mine at invading, and even after we covered some of her lawn, for a new landscaping bed, with black plastic for 6 weeks in the hottest part of the summer, the Bermuda's roots still are not killed. We looked under the plastic this week and saw lots of thick white roots with hints of green barely showing. What a pain. I just simply hate Bermuda grass.

The only good thing; is that even if it goes dormant in a drought most Bermuda will not die out, and in the next warm rainy season it flourishes again. For Lawns that is great. For Landscape beds that is nothing more than a huge weedy burden. Now, for my friend's new landscape bed, I know of no other choice than to spray the area with a grass root killer that will not harm the roses and thornless dwarf hawthorn tree and some shrubs we want to plant next week in that new bed.

As far as my above advice to Mike, I did not want to advise him to make the soil in his oak tree's bed extra fertile until he gets his bermuda roots under control. If he does make the tree's bed nice and fertile before then, with the organic stuff you mentioned, The Bermuda will simply send down even deeper roots and take a stronger hold in the bed, resulting in the roots stealing most of those composted organic nutrients away from the tree's rootball.

Since the tree is already stressed, many pests which drop and spend the winter in the soil do not like the oils in cedar. That is why I suggested Mike use it. Not so much to break down and feed the tree, but to instead help retain soil moisture, and to retard the pests which otherwise might want to emerge from the soil and attack this tree that is currently struggling to establish.

Mike, once your bermuda is under better control, then by all means do all you can to follow Lou's advice on the organic spreads. And when your tree is more healthy, you can begin to use the faster breaking down mulches Lou mentioned, because by then the health of the tree should help discourage more of such opportunist pests from rushing in.

Is it a Pin Oak? Could be Anthracnose????

Thanks Katrina. The only way I know of slowing bermuda down naturally is to grow a forest. :) Growing st augustine at 4 inches cutting height will slow bermuda down but it is inevitable anyway. Mulching will greatly help because what they do is grow fungi population in a great numbers and they break down organic material and release nitrogen in the form of ammonium rather than nitrate (lawn is dominated by bacteria rather than fungi). Trees and shrubs prefer ammonium. Grass prefer nitrate. That's why trees grows faster with wide mulch. The wider, the better. Sure bermuda will grow into mulch but it's not so bad as long as you are diligent on keeping them out as much as you can e.g. pulling runners out, trim runners out around the mulch whenever you do yard chore. If you do nothing all year long, it will be a lot more work.

blueseatx-

you have no idea how damaging it is to the soil if you do all that stuff. It doesn't really fix the underlying cause. It is a vicious cycle trying to fix the problems over and over and over with all the chemicals and you'd be left with sterile soil. Plants can't stay healthy in that kind of condition. It is like giving crack to crackhead just to get the edge off.... All it takes is healthy soil to fix most of the problems... In your case, it'd take a long time.

Lou,

Blueseatx wasn't being serious. I'm sure the post was just to counter the views of "environmental extremists". I think most people (obviously not everyone) is starting to realize how important good environmental stewardship is to everything including humanity, BUT some people just jump on something saying it's "stupid" or "unsafe" without really understanding the situation. That probably hurts the environmental cause almost as bad as those that pollute or harm the environment in other ways. It certainly destroys their credibility and prevents them from effectively convincing others to respect the environment.

Personally, I didn't take texasredhead's post that way, but I did realize that it was not well stated and was actually rather rude.

Lou thanks for the info on how fungi under mulch makes the soil less inviting for the grass; that does make sense as to why you gave the advice in your first response. I agree a forest is good against bermuda. Deprive the Bermuda from light and moisture; yes, the bermuda does die in such conditons.

In a lawn though, the Bermuda roots grow 18 inches deep and spread both by runners on top but all through the soil for those 18 inches down. Even Round-up has problems getting to the very deepest roots. That is why I dislike Bermuda lawns so much.

I also find it difficult to imagine that the unfriendly soil the fungi produces for bermuda under decomposing mulch will manifest more quickly than well established bermuda roots, which proliferate from all the moisture that a young, establishing tree must have, and in the presence of the extra nursery applied fast growth nutrients, which may be still affecting the tree's rootball.

Thank you very much for the help so far! I believe when I bought them they were Red Oaks... this one is in the worse condition of the 2 I have.

Mike,

It is VERY COMMON to get the wrong red oak for your type of soil I should know. I've been down that road with two red oak and one thrived and one didn't thrive. The one that didn't thrive was obviously mislabed or just simply cross bred with another red oak that grows only in acidic soil from the east - Please read this article..

www.cityofirving.org/inspections/red-oak.html.

>>>The needed task process ahead of you would be much more simple if instead of Bermuda, you had a sodded yard of Palmetto Saint Augustine grass. any PSA grass you wanted to be be allowed to grow under your tree's canopy would even look better once the canopy gets healthy enough to cause more shade under its canopyI have an Oak in my front yard that has been in the ground for about four years. For the first three I kept a ring of compost topped with mulch around it. My yard has St.Augustine grass. The grass finally took over and covered the ring this summer. Is the SA as good as a mulch ring or should I take out the SA this fall and put in a mulched ring? I notice that the area around the trunk that is not mulched will grow Bermuda around it like crazy. Is there some way to keep the Bermuda out of this area? Should I hit it with Roundup every now and then or just go in and pull weeds? As you know, that Bermuda doesn't pull very easily.
Thanks

I just bought and planted 11 oaks yesterday. I think your tree looks just fine. These new trees i have look worse than yours! the spot on the trunk is probably not mower or weedeater damage but sunsplit? I don't know if that is the correct terminology or not. But in the late winter when the sun heats up the trunk. That's why some people put a tape or plastic protection around the young trees. I think your brown leaves are just scorch caused by the heat and sun.