Thanks for all of your advice everyone! We decided to cut down the live oak tree (holly?) and painted the stump. We really appreciate all of your input :) @Ken: Here is another picture of the Bur oak. Its lower branches have a tendency to grow at 45 degree angle towards the ground. If we wanted to trim these angled branches, can we do it now if we spray paint the wound? Or should we wait until next winter? I have been reading about oak wilt in Texas and it's making me a bit paranoid.... Thanks again :)

Why remove the leaves? The plants love them, but I know if you're dealing with an HOA, you may not have a choice. I had bromeliads, gingers, amaryllis, crinums and philodendrons under my oaks. I planted the philodendrons by laying them up against the oak tree trunk and covering with a pile of dirt. They eventually grew up into the tree and were gorgeous. I loved not having to rake under the tree, or even fertilize much, because of the leaves. Never "planted" a bromeliad. Just laid them on the ground and let them do their thing. The gingers only need an inch of dirt over them to grow. The giant crinum was planted quite by accident when I was given one which I tossed under the tree and forgot about. It rooted into the ground, still growing on its side, and bloomed like mad every year. The amaryllis I started as tiny bulbets given to me by a friend, so I only had to dig a tiny little hole and cover with dirt to start them. They took a few years to bloom, but they did, and multiplied like mad. There is a grass that will grow under oaks. It's called "Bitter Blue" St. Augustine, and it's not that easy to find. Mine was there when I moved in, and wherever it grew out from under the shade, it died, because I didn't irrigate the lawn. Still, it thrived under the oak. Monkey grass is also easy to plant and grow under oaks, because you can pull the clumps apart and just plant the sprigs. It fills in rapidly. Same with the green or variegated ornamental sweet potato. Just root some cuttings in water and plant them as soon as they have tiny 1/2" roots on them. Of course, you can always mulch and use containers for flowers if you want. A lot of people do that.

The Burneyville mesonet station often gets 3 to 6 (and occasionally as much as 10) degrees lower than our place does in winter and especially in late spring, and that's really something because our place is in a low-lying creek-hollow in the already low-lying (as you know) Red River Valley. On May 1st, I think we only went to 35 or 36 at our house, but I had all the warm-season crops covered with a frost blanket type floating row cover that gives at least 10 degrees of protection, so I was ready for anything down to 22 degrees. Living in a cold microclimate keeps you on your toes and makes you prepare for the worst when a late cold night is expected. I believe it was in 2008 that our forecast low on a night early in May was 50 degrees so, naturally, I didn't cover up anything. I went outside the next morning to 32 degrees and tomato plants that had been 3' tall and covered with fruit were frozen to the ground, as were pepper plants and even potato plants. I learned a lesson that year, and now I am careful to cover up my plants on any night I think will drop down below about 40 degrees (which wouldn't have helped on that night that we went 18 degrees lower than forecast). Most of the plants resprouted from the roots, and there were 5 or 6 tomato plants (planted on the highest point of land in the garden, right next to the gravel driveway) that only suffered freeze damage but didn't die. I think that being close to the driveway helped them stay warm from some of the heat it absorbed during the daytime. Anyhow, that's an example of how tricky the weather can be here along the Red River, so take all your forecast lows with a grain of salt the first few years until you learn if your specific location tends to have temperatures that are more or less the same as your mesonet station's, or if you're in either a much warmer or much cooler microclimate. We got colder than usual here this year at our house and I expect y'all did too over there near Durant. Some trees that normally are not damaged by the cold not only were damaged, but one is dead and one is clinging to life. Others lost flowers and leaves on one of the many late cold mornings. I almost never lose a tree here to heat or drought, but extraordinary cold gets one every now and then. Often it isn't the cold temperature itself, it is that it arrives either very early in fall when the weather has otherwise remained warm so the trees haven't had a chance to adapt to increasingly colder weather or it happens in spring after everything has warmed up and leafed out and lost its cold tolerance. Hopefully your live oak only lost leaves to a late cold spell and will put out new ones. When we first moved here from Texas, I kept trying to trick Mother Nature and grow some zone 8 plants that I loved. I could get away with it for a year or 2 or 3, but eventually Mother Nature wins and the zone 8 plant dies, so I've stopped trying to do that now. I had damage this spring on Mexican plum (native to our property and this one looks entirely dead), Mimosa (lots of freeze damage but regrowing now....and, yes, I know it is a trash tree but I grow it for the hummingbirds who love it), my 'Jane' magnolia, which has struggled since the tremendous drought of 2011 and just may not make it, and Chinaberry, another trash tree I loved in Texas and planted here for the hummingbirds and butterflies. I also may have lost an in-ground Brown Turkey fig that froze back to the ground but isn't putting out any new growth yet. It should have shown regrowth by now. The Brown Turkey fig in a large container (a black molasses cattle feed tub) spent part of the winter in the greenhouse and part of it outdoors and is fine and fully leafed out. This was a really hard winter for trees here.

As youÂve noticed, almost no trees grow here naturally, and the ones you do see are usually along a creek or other water source. Denver and all of the front range is semi-arid, high-plains desert. Denver is lushÂand virtually everything growing here is irrigated. (Well, "lush" is relative! Florida it ainÂt!) Have you lived out here for a full year yet? Whenever I have company out here from the midwest, theyÂre absolutely amazed by the constant watering. I grew up in Illinois where we almost never watered, and in summer the grass went dormant when it wasnÂt wet enough. Out here, if the grassÂand everything elseÂisnÂt watered, it doesnÂt go dormant-----it dies! Coming from Florida to Colorado, you must be in climate shock! Oak trees will grow out here, but they will definitely have to be watered regularly. If planted in a lawn, the "normal" lawn watering will probably be enough. ButÂwe also have very alkaline soil out here in most places, and I think oaks donÂt like too alkaline a soil, so they would probably grow more slowly and never acquire the full height that they would "back east." HereÂs a link to the Colorado State University Extension Service fact sheet on large deciduous trees. Scroll down to Quercus! And hereÂs a cut & paste link to all the Extension Service fact sheets. This is a GREAT place to find information about gardening around hereÂin the dry lands! http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/pubgard.html#tree Happy learning, Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: CSU - Large Deciduous Trees