Don't you think that you'd like to invest in your existing trees? It might be appropriate to bring in two or three ISA Certified Arborists to have a quick look at the condition of your trees and offer estimates for suggested work. Live oaks can respond to something as little as a substantial mulch application! An educated professional will take into account the history of the site, soil conditions, maintenance, etc. I lived in live oak territory long enough to know that you don't have to sit idly by as they decline. Sometimes they are beyond our help, but some can benefit enormously from professional care. click HERE to find Houston area ISA arborists Just use the search for Houston.....there are numerous listings.

javiwa, I don't want to scare you, I tell all this as a warning to anyone who might be interested in stopping a problem based on our experience. The reason the trees got established and growing all along the property line was there used to be a wooden stockade fence & I had a hedge on our side. I didn't worry back then, I also felt the fence separated us into a safe zone. The trees were tall but still not anywhere close to mature and I didn't pay attention to them. We didn't have any problems here for several years except for a bit of volunteers I weeded (nothing like the numbers I get now). As the guy got older and lazier or whatever his problem is, the # of trees increased back there all over the yard especially around the foundations and perimeter over some years and of course the older ones are now huge with big canopy's and overbearing. Unless you really stay on it every year, there will always be dozens of new trees coming up. For years now, I've had to sneak over there and remove new trees along the border when the guy is at work. Several years back, the trees and roots destroyed the stockade fence, pushed it over onto our side, things by that time were well underway toward the bad in his yard. I have regretted and cursed the fact that we didn't deal with them when they were small. The trees stayed smallish but tall with thin trunks for quite some time and then it seems like over a single season, suddenly they were huge. The soil along that side of my yard is solid roots and its hard growing plants there, the soil has heaved up over time as well making his property stair-step up higher than ours. The canopy of the trees and dense shade is now very high up and overwhelming and theres no escaping the dropping seeds and branches. One large one hits our house and must be trimmed back yearly and has torn his house up pretty bad. Trimming creates lots of ugly suckers that grow to full size in a single season so the more you trim, the uglier the tree looks over time + the big branches send out longer branches that hang down, getting longer and lower over time above our property. They also continually drip a kind of sap that turns our white stucco wall and the side of the house grey and dirty looking. The stuff forms grey streaky lines. Up the street is a park with some lovely hackberry specimens. Its night and day difference speaking about trees volunteering along a property line and the majestic ones in the park where its mowed and there is plenty of space. Native or not, they are a serious and destructive nuisance in urban areas, not to mention, high maintenance.

I live in North Beaumont without any houses next to me. On cold, still morning it is 5 degrees colder on this side of Beaumont than my office on the south side of Beaumont, 8 miles away. That is driving down the highway. It will vary even more if the area is surrounded by houses. Many people plant their citrus on the south side of a building to give them more cold tolerance. Even if the building is not heated it seems to help. I believe it was 2011 when the top of the soil froze enough you could walk on wet ground without breaking through. I have lived here 16 years and that was the only year that has happened. According to old timers, we seem to get that kind of cold weather every 20 years, enough people are leery about putting in orchards.

Thank you all for your advice and encouragement. Sub, I did see that comment, it was helpful! Sheila, my head knows it’s a waiting game, but my neurotic soul wants to know what I’m facing RIGHT NOW, ha! And also what to be looking for in the meantime because I can’t stop obsessing. Seil, letting me know you generally have to prune twice is crazy helpful. Thank you! I followed Ken and Ben’s advice on a thread about fort and clay soil when I first put them in. The graft isn’t deep, it’s right at the soil line. I did mound leaves and mulch around the base of the plants, which does go above the graft, but I didn’t completely cover them with blankets when the temperature dipped like Ken does. It honestly didn’t occur to me to do that even though we knew the day before the polar vortex was coming, I didn’t expect the temperatures to dip that low for so long. Shows my inexperience, I guess. I‘m glad to hear the own roots will most likely be okay! So what I’m hearing that I won’t definitively know at pruning time what’s damaged necessarily? Just take out what’s for sure and then kind of wait and see after that?