English Oaks

[Teeder]

Ya, it's all tracked up with scrapes, too.
I see deer under them every evening and morning.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I wonder if a more northern source would be better?

I know @bwoods11 has a handful of schuettes that should be firmly in 4a at least. I think he's used both kellys (IA) and Itasca as sources.

Itasca greenhouse just has bur, red, and swamp white listed right now but they claim their SWO are from a northern MN source.

The bur/english acorns I planted from @b116757 made it through their first winter well on border of 4a/4b but they had a lot of insulating snow all winter.

 

[b116757]

Itasca MN is in zone 3 so wonder if they can’t actually overwinter the SWO themselves at the nursery.

 

[paleopoint]

Teeder: "Ya, it's all tracked up with scrapes, too."

True that!
I haven't visited all of them....but nearly every EO that I have seen has a scrape underneath it.
That is a phenomena that I've noticed for the last several years.
That's not to say that other trees ...mulberries, apples, crabs, etc. .....don't experience scraping activity. They do.
But with at least my EO's, with my local herd, they seem to be sort of the most popular of the local 'pick-up bars'.

Also of note, I put a camera up for a single night by an EO behind one of my barns...maybe 100yds behind.
I did it because that particular scrape was getting big and deep. Clearly it was 'high intensity'.

So I put the cam over it.....and I got: One very nice 3yr old buck, and maybe 7 or 8 does (hard to tell 'em apart).
The does were...at least on that single night....the most active of that scrape's participants.

Who knew?

 

[Teeder]

Check these acorns out. This tree is one that i started from an acorn from my English trees "1" or "2". The leaves are very English like, but turn red in the fall. It may be my imagination, but it seems like they have more finger-like lobes than the other English. I have close to 50-60 English oaks, but only 2, that I started at the same time, have red leaves in the fall. My guess is they have some white oak in them, but I don't know of a white oak anywhere near here.
The acorns have a pinkish hue to them. Different than typical English. The individual leaves are from the 2 trees in question. The 3 sets of leaves on the tailgate show the slight difference in the leaves and acorns with the normal English on the right.

This year's color. My other "English" are still mostly green with a little dingy yellow-brown starting.