We have no oak diversity on our farm, it is 100% bur oaks. So we really focus on growing other types of oaks. We've planted reds, whites, pins, and chinkapins by bareroot seedling 3 yrs ago and here is what they look like today... as with all tree plantings... some look amazing and others leave you scratching your head as to what went wrong
Some of the trees in this planting have taken off, mostly the red oaks!
18" of new growth this year so far, and it's only mid May
Many growing in the tubes and hopefully find their way to the top of the tubes this year
White oak nearing the top, they're slower growing compared to the reds
While some trees go nuts and put on 2ft or more of growth a year... there are many like this. :? Great ~2ft the first year... died back... grew ~2ft the second year... died back... repeating the same deal every year. Not sure these trees will every reach maturity, that's just part of planting trees
I did plant a few acorns last fall and this spring, some are just now sprouting
One of the many cedars we planted
The biggest red oak - about 12ft tall after 3 growing seasons. Planted as a 1-2ft tall bareroot seedling. That is some impressive growth! I just wish more would've done this
White oak already out of the tube. I believe this is the first white oak to make it out of the tubes in this planting
This tree confuses me... two years ago it was 6ft tall and well out of the tube. Last year it died back and sent out new growth from the stump but did grow 6ft and reached well outside the tube again. This year... it hasn't greened up and looks pretty dead. What the heck?
Here is another tree planting, the first tree and shrub planting we ever did. I believe it was back in 2009 so it has 6 growing seasons and is going into #7. This area is very wet and swampy, poorly drained soil. We've mowed it every year since but do not intend on mowing any more
The trees in here were black walnut and shagbark hickory. The shagbarks all died the first year and the walnuts did very well. Eventually the wet area in the planting claimed the lives of many of the walnuts but some have done ok. Especially this one. Last year I checked on it and noticed the bottom of the tube had become jammed with walnuts leaves and they were decomposing and eating away at the bark. I removed the debris, opened the tube, removed the t-post and crossed my fingers the tree would survive. So far things look ok
Some more trees that thankfully did not die back and hopefully will take off this year
Again I planted acorns in this areas, all swamp white oaks
Not sure you've noticed or not but all of the tree planting pics shown in this post had some weed growth around them... that's because I haven't sprayed them at all this year. I used to spray them with a heavy dose of residual herbicides and it'd keep 99.9% of any vegetation from growing around the tree. Problem that created was it left a lot of exposed dirt which had lead us to erosion problems around the bottom of the tubes. So this year I'm waiting for the weeds to just begin to get out of control before spraying, hoping to minimize erosion. Many tubes look like this... and they were pressed into the ground as of last fall. :? This leads to the tube bouncing back and forth in the wind which eventually breaks many of the tubes.
Another tree that confuses me. It used to be the most vigrous growing walnut in here. One year it took off and the next had lots of die back... now this year it has died back completely and has a few sprouts in the middle of it's trunk. I don't get it?
The wild plums and other shrubs we planted have done excellent. Now they're beginning to send out suckers to eventually create a thick line of great habitat
One of the troubles we had with this planting was it gets really swampy in the middle. None of the trees we planted could handle it and the only shrub that's loved the swamp is the red osier dogwood
I got a couple red maple bareroot seedlings given to me so I put them in this planting, they're off to a great start!
Before I mentioned how I've heald back spraying the weeds around the trees... I should add that I am spraying the grasses around the trees. Trying to keep those at bay from getting to choking on the young seedlings
