NRO or Q. shumardii? It could be 15 or so years before those trees you planted start cracking and raising the sidewalk. At which time should have proven to be plenty of time to have raised the funding that could have been earmarked to use for removal and fix of any damage the tree's roots end up doing to the sidewalks. Still, I do not think the root expansion potential will be the primary concern over the years. Instead it is likely that it could end up being lingering problems with litter that a 15 year old oak will be dropping. I have not encountered litter problems with your region's NROs, but I do have two shumardii oaks planted in my front yard and with a neighborhood sidewalk running along just west of them. These trees had been planted high to help prevent root suffocation in our clay soil. The planting holes had been centered 6 feet just East of that sidewalk. These two shumardiis are plant about 50 feet apart, with our front walk that leads up to our front entry door, running evenly spaced up the center between each of them. They were first planted 25 year ago, in field grown B&B form, in the size of 4" trunks. They have never displayed any side walk raising or cracking damage. But there still are some big hassles with these trees. The worst of which is a yearly, large amount of litter. These two Shumard trees drop blankets of their long stingy pollen flowers in the spring, and that heavily litters the yard and sidewalks. But even worse is the massive amounts of acorns those shumards have been dropping for the last 15 or more years. Once the trees start dropping their, year before the last produced, acorns each year; then over many months the trees continue to drop acorn litter on the sidewalks. The sidewalks have to be swept daily during those months, and still people walking by encounter crunching acorns under their feet. In addition these acorns which fall in the yard and landscaping beds sprout almost as abundantly as is seen with many maple tree seeds. Evey year it is a chore to pull up all those new oak sprouts, plus it is difficult to keep the ones mowed down in the grass, since these little sprouts shoot up quicker than the grass grows in those early spring months. My point? It is my opion that your stressing, over if you should or should not have instead planted shumard oaks, is pointless. That is if you are just concerned about trying to avoid causing problems with your planting choice. True; Shumard tree root systems might do better in the 6 foot spacing, but that still does not make them the right tree to plant in the location you have described. Haven't convinced you yet? It has only been almost 2 years ago when 4 days of freezing rain fell and damaged most all the trees in our local area. Just over a half inch of ice accumulated on all the trees branches and even trunks. Many of the Pine trees along with other such tree's main leader trunks snapped off midway up the heights of the trees. Huge old maple and elm trees fell over, and were uprooted. The sugar maples' canopy branches broke off so much that the result made them look like a bad tree pruning job had topped them. What happened to my over 20 year old Shumards: Major limb breakage. After having the damaged and broken limbs pruned correctly away, for months later during most every windy spring storms more of the branches that had been weakened during the ice storm continues to break off. This happened even after we hired reputable tree pruners to remove any damaged limbs they found on the trees. Today both these trees still look very disfigured. Even so, My 10 year old shumard that I first planted in the back yard when it was still a spout off of one of my shumards in front, did not suffer any damage at all. This Shumard is planted where its roots can spread all it wants, and where it gets a better source of water runoff. I also am not bothered by excessive acorn drop with this tree. You might think that is because this tree is not as mature as its parent trees growing in the front yard. Yes, maybe that does contribute to why it seems to have been so much more resilient Still,a younger development age is not the only reason this 10 year old tree did better. Consider that I also have a 25 year old scarlet oak tree growing on the other side of my back yard. This tree is just as tall and spreads just as wide as the shumard oaks that were damaged so badly in the front yard. But this Scarlet oak tree, just like my 10 year old Shumardii has plenty of space to spread its fine feeder roots as far as it wants, and this Scarlet oak tree did not suffer any branch damage at all, by the ice storm I described above. Neither does it drop enough acorns to caused me hassles with too many sprouts growing in unwanted places. So if you seriously are wondering that you might have planted an otherwise good tree in the wrong place, then please stop wondering if, instead, you should have planted a Shumardii oak in the location you have described.

I planted a dozen or so F2 BurEnglish seedlings(from OIKOS) alongside my driveway 10-12 years ago. Only one of the group has been worthy, in my estimation of being allowed to grow as-is; all the others, I've taken out or grafted over to the "McDaniel" BurXEnglish selection. The seedlings I have tended to be more like the Q.robur parent - heavy infestation of powdery mildew, ratty, twiggy growth habit, and I'm still dealing with profuse basal suckering - I'm not certain but that most of these may have had a fastigiate Q.robur ancestor somewhere in the mix. I've not been impressed with the growth habit of my "McDaniel' grafts; no good central-leader dominance - but this is a problem with grafting 'mature' wood - sort of like 'old budlines' of citrus - they tend to be more of a spreading, orchard type tree rather than the upright central-leader type growth you'd expect with a seedling which has not yet grown out of its juvenile state. 'McDaniel' foliage is, however, very clean, with no powdery mildew, heavy acorn production, and the acorns it produces are very large - though I do have some AL, TX, & OK -origin bur oaks that have larger acorns. No appreciable fall color, smooth bark similar to the Q.robur parent, rather than the corky ridges so prevalent on Q.macrocarpa.

Your tree is getting some width growth compared to the last pic. The subject of fall color above has me wanting to mention that I have added a Nyssa Sylvatica to my yard, Black Gum or Tupelo tree. They get great fall color or so I've read. I bought 3 by accident. I have 1 in the ground,1 in a pot and 1 is in a raised bed, and I am going to TRY Bonsai with it. I will transplant the potted one this fall. I am not sure where it will go yet. My yard is getting very crowded, I wish I could give it to somebody. I meant to buy only 1 of them. That Regal Prince will get how wide in maturity? About 15 feet? I forget, sorry. My oaks are doing fine, a few have had Japanese Beetles really eat alot of leaves. Like my Q. Velutina. It has had some issues with what LOOKS like "Butt rot" or a fungus type thing at the trunk bottom. I've been using a fungicide on it, and it seems to have healed the original scar. That is the only REALLY decimated tree (Japanese Beetle infestation) in my yard, and, I am guessing because of the Fungus problem making it weaker than all the other trees in my yard. The rest just had some leaves eaten that didn't harm tree. I need to do an update about that tree (the Q. Velutina) on GW BUT, I can't post pics anymore. I had posted and taken a pic or 2 showing the tree wound. I want to do an update, but, I can't. My computer didn't recognize the disk when I put it in my computer. Anyway, enjoy the rest of summer Dmac, I am waiting for Fall, and it's cooler temps, I can't take this 90"s F crap having. Later.

I should've said that drying acorns is not an exact science. Over drying and they will lose their viability. Whether they are float tested and/or sunk for 24 hours to remove weevils... place them on drying racks or cardboard until they are surface dried and then place them in ziplock bags and put them into your refrigerator. If heavy condensation develops inside the ziplock bag, remove them and dry them a day at a time and return them to your refrigerator. Only until the inside of the ziplock bag shows mist-sized droplets of 1/4 to 1/3 of the bag are they ready. Any large water droplets and you must dry them more. My above statement of two weeks is what I have done in the past and I still had far too much condensation inside my bags. You would be much safer to go thru the process a day or two days at a time until optimal condensation is achieved. All the best, Dax