How big are they? Thats a good point made that you may end up having to pay a lot of money to remove them but I wouldn't necessarily jump at the first offer. These aren't all that common, maybe there they are but not where I live and you cant just run to a tree farm and find a couple of mature columnar oaks waiting around. Also, these folks don't know that you don't like the trees. You might start negotiations by saying they were planted by your great grandmother and go from there. For some time I wondered who wanted an oak that retained its leaves through the winder and then I realized thats good for instances where privacy is needed.

When it gets tan or brown it's ripe. An inch,or just covered barely has worked for me. I always lay mine on their sides. The acorns of the oak you have will put out roots ( taproot ) before any leaves, and this will happen not long after they fall if it's a good viable acorn. They may start to send out a taproot before you get them planted. The red oak family oaks don't sprout til after a cold period, the English oak is in the white oak family and needs no cold period to sprout. I don't know how to beat the critters, pantyhose over the branch? Well, If you see it when it's tan or brown shake the tree? That's early for seed production. I have used a piece of hardware cloth with rocks around the edges to deter squirrels from digging.

get rid of it.. nothing like i pictured in my mind ... trees are supposed to blow in the wind.. so be it ... the only reason to stake such .. is if the root mass is moving ... interfering with them growing into the soil ...and as your seller noted.. that should be over after the first year.. unless you really messed up the planting .... cant see any of that.. but i dont care ... if you do start to notice such.. more pix.. and we can opine ... release it to the wind ... i wouldnt worry about the top ... it will sort itself out ... in a few years ... ken

I planted the trees April/May 2015. I actually planted 11 (different kinds) last year. It was planted in a garden bed with existing soil & a bit of triple mix, as well as a layer of mulch throughout. And no I did not pile mulch against the trunk. This area of the garden never completely dries out. However, it is not overly wet either. Under the impression that these trees were ideal for a range of soil. Because of the smaller starting sizes of all the trees, I have never used stakes. As I said previously, it moved too easily. If you were to pull up straight up on the trunk it had a lot of give. Felt like I could pop it out, but I didn't really want to test it too much. The other oak I have is already very sturdy. I guess what I'm wondering is do I leave it until it starts to leaf out or should I do a little exploratory digging? I could post a picture later, but it won't really give any indications of a problem.