# I planted 3 live oaks today...



## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

...even though I'm fairly far north of their range. I picked up the acorns when I was in New Orleans last year, and I figured it's worth a try. Winters have been uncharacteristically mild here in Pennsylvania for years. Could the global warming folks have it partly right?

Maybe 75 years from now, when all the native trees have died from the heat, the neighborhood will be enjoying some delicious acorn flour hoecakes with their dandelion salads while waiting for their FEMA food parcels. I hope not. :unconscious:


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

sideKahr said:


> ...even though I'm fairly far north of their range. I picked up the acorns when I was in New Orleans last year, and I figured it's worth a try. Winters have been uncharacteristically mild here in Pennsylvania for years. Could the global warming folks have it partly right?
> 
> Maybe 75 years from now, when all the native trees have died from the heat, the neighborhood will be enjoying some delicious acorn flour hoecakes with their dandelion salads while waiting for their FEMA food parcels. I hope not. :unconscious:


Growing up in the Coastal South, the Live Oak has been one of my favorite trees. Good luck.


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## Moonshinedave (Mar 28, 2013)

Best of luck, to you and the oaks, keep us updated.


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## AquaHull (Jun 10, 2012)

Finally the last of my oaks are dropping their leaves, just as other's are budding.


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

AquaHull said:


> Finally the last of my oaks are dropping their leaves, just as other's are budding.


Yeah, pin oaks, right? They shed in fall and spring, doubling your yard work. We cut ours down.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

I planted red oaks as a child from my Grandpas farm, they are 30" dbh now.

Have also established beech, butternut, walnut, and chestnuts. Chestnuts are from reforeastion effort.

Edit: to those that don't know logging terms, dbh = diameter breast height


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

Mad Trapper said:


> I planted red oaks as a child from my Grandpas farm, they are 30" dbh now.
> 
> Have also established beech, butternut, walnut, and chestnuts. Chestnuts are from reforeastion effort.


I planted black walnut on the company's property 20 years ago, and told the son of the owner how to care for them when I retired. I've read that they can be worth $10,000 dollars each for veneer if you keep the bottom 11 feet clear of knots.


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## GTGallop (Nov 11, 2012)

Live Oak, Post Oak, Red Oak - Some of my FAVES!


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

sideKahr said:


> I planted black walnut on the company's property 20 years ago, and told the son of the owner how to care for them when I retired. I've read that they can be worth $10,000 dollars each for veneer if you keep the bottom 11 feet clear of knots.


Be carefull, mills and lumber companys will try to cheat you.

I worked in a mill and learned sawying, milling, drying, and grading

Turds running local mills offered me less than cordwood price, for 20-24"dbh clear/veneer select black cherry, that was more going for more than oak walnut or hard maple then., skidded to roadside

I brought a small mill and the first week milled more 5/4 clear select cherry than the shister at the mill offered for the logs, and more than I paid for a sawmill I still use. That is mill- log price offered about $4000 ahead


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

We had a huge black cherry in the back yard of the property next to our fire department. The borough was going to build on the lot, and the assistant chief had his eye on that trunk for rifle stocks. The trainees cut the tree down and into two foot pieces one day. They thought they were helping. I'd never seen a grown man cry before.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

sideKahr said:


> We had a huge black cherry in the back yard of the property next to our fire department. The borough was going to build on the lot, and the assistant chief had his eye on that trunk for rifle stocks. The trainees cut the tree down and into two foot pieces one day. They thought they were helping. I'd never seen a grown man cry before.


Yes, that would hurt me too.

But be careful of "yard/fenceline" trees. I saw an oak stop a 300 hp 400 amp electric circular mill. It had 4 horse shoues driven in many years ago to make a gate. That was a $3000 blade. Have ran into a bunch of barbed wire with my chainsaws too. Drop them high and after you have cleared metal, then u take the base ( maybe with a junk chain)


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

It's against the law to cut the live oaks in the historic district. You will get a huge fine and maybe even a trip to jail for mugshots and fingerprints. 

It's no joke. We take our oak trees seriously in South Alabamm......


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

AquaHull said:


> Finally the last of my oaks are dropping their leaves, just as other's are budding.


I'm so far south that most trees don't lose their leaves in the winter. The new growth in the spring makes the old leaves fall off.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

Operator6 said:


> It's against the law to cut the live oaks in the historic district. You will get a huge fine and maybe even a trip to jail for mugshots and fingerprints.
> 
> It's no joke. We take our oak trees seriously in South Alabamm......


Sorry to ask, ignorant Yankee here, don't take offense.

We have white, red, chestnut, swamp, oaks.... I like whites best as they bear nuts every year and you can eat them without leaching out the tannins.

What is a live oak?

Only been to Dixie once. Nice folks, asked us why we brought the frost to Daytona in 88


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

Mad Trapper said:


> Sorry to ask, ignorant Yankee here, don't take offense.
> 
> We have white, red, chestnut, swamp, oaks.... I like whites best as they bear nuts every year and you can eat them without leaching out the tannins.
> 
> ...


The canopy grows almost as wide as the tree is tall. Trees on each side of a 5-6 lane street can touch in the center so it's like your driving through a tree tunnel.



__ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150659550005136934/


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

Mad Trapper said:


> Sorry to ask, ignorant Yankee here, don't take offense...What is a live oak?...Only been to Dixie once.


Here are some live oaks we saw on Jeckyl Island. When the branches touch the earth and grow upwards again, the locals call them "Angel Oaks".

















The original namesake Angel Oak is believed by many to be the oldest living thing east of the Mississippi River:


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

sideKahr said:


> Here are some live oaks we saw on Jeckyl Island. When the branches touch the earth and grow upwards again, the locals call them "Angel Oaks".
> 
> View attachment 15882
> 
> ...


I vacation at the Cloister at Sea Island, that's right next door.....

St. Simon and all the GA island are nice.

I like the Gulf coast beaches better though, especially Miramar Beach, Fl.

I'll make it a point to take a few pics of the angel oaks for ya. They are cool, it's definitely different.


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## GTGallop (Nov 11, 2012)

Operator6 said:


> The canopy grows almost as wide as the tree is tall. Trees on each side of a 5-6 lane street can touch in the center so it's like your driving through a tree tunnel.
> 
> 
> 
> __ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150659550005136934/


Have done similar with Shurmardi Red Oaks. If you have BOL and you want to make a covered area like a pavilion, plant some oaks about 20 feet apart and they will grow together and their canopies inter twine. Nice natural cover. Feeding them Milorganite really pushes them when they are young.


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

sideKahr said:


> The original namesake Angel Oak is believed by many to be the oldest living thing east of the Mississippi River:
> 
> View attachment 15884


We had something similar until an idiot vandalized and killed it. Read here....
Inspiration Oak may be gone but park and tree's soured history live on in Baldwin County (photos) | AL.com


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

GTGallop said:


> Have done similar with Shurmardi Red Oaks. If you have BOL and you want to make a covered area like a pavilion, plant some oaks about 20 feet apart and they will grow together and their canopies inter twine. Nice natural cover. Feeding them Milorganite really pushes them when they are young.


I could never get past the fact that Milorganite is dried, human waste. But I hear it really does work.


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

Operator6 said:


> We had something similar until an idiot vandalized and killed it. Read here....
> Inspiration Oak may be gone but park and tree's soured history live on in Baldwin County (photos) | AL.com


How could people believe that tree was 500 years old, when it was really only 90? That's within the memory of peoples' parents, who were alive when there was no large tree there. Amazing.


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## Operator6 (Oct 29, 2015)

sideKahr said:


> How could people believe that tree was 500 years old, when it was really only 90? That's within the memory of peoples' parents, who were alive when there was no large tree there. Amazing.


No way that tree was 90 yrs old. It was much older. There are 100 yr + old trees here all over. That's the ones you'll go to jail for cutting. Neighborhoods full of them.

I know what the boys at Auburn said but there was more to the story than meets the eye. Political corruption at its finest.


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

Operator6 said:


> The canopy grows almost as wide as the tree is tall. Trees on each side of a 5-6 lane street can touch in the center so it's like your driving through a tree tunnel.
> 
> 
> 
> __ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150659550005136934/


We have a few hardwoods that grow like that. The white"edible" oaks have lobed leaves, the red oaks have pointed leaves. The reds you need to leach out the tannins in water before you can eat them.

As far as growth, depends on deep forest or street/fieldside, they grow tall and straight in forest. I have seen sugar maple and ash that big. One was 8" shy of a 28" bar on both sides.

When I worked at a mill, we had trunks come in the the mill would not take. Then we got a break, and we used a big chainsaw to take off the first slabs. That was a 2-hander saw that we used too square off packs of 6X8" beams. That was mostly old growth white pine, get a bunch of clear on the outside, then a bunch of beams. But we had some big hardwood too.


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## txmarine6531 (Nov 18, 2015)

I like live oaks, we got plenty in TX. There's a restaurant in Houston, around the north side I think, that has some big live oaks around the property. They have a big ass deck built for outdoor dining, and some of the lower branches on those oaks are 25+ feet long, supported by brick columns. String lights hanging, really nice place to eat at night.


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## GTGallop (Nov 11, 2012)

sideKahr said:


> I could never get past the fact that Milorganite is dried, human waste. But I hear it really does work.


For trees and stuff it is OK - but when I'd do the whole yard it would smell like an out house caught fire for three days.

EDIT ==> But you can't argue with the results! Fantastic!


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## Mad Trapper (Feb 12, 2014)

The size of trees will surprize you depending on where they grew. You can count the growth rings and see times of lean and rich growth. Trees that get much light, moisture and nutrients grow wide and broad. Similar trees in a forest canopy grow tall and straight, they make the best lumber. 

Biggest trees I fell and counted the growth rings were not original old growth, but about the time the land was cleared and marked with stone fence lines. The original trees were harvested for homes, barns, and ships. New England about 1650-1700. 

Some of the newer trees surprised me, an ash 30+" dbh a little over 130 years old. I have a "mother" sugar maple whose branches were as described oaks in the south, with branches the size of trees and the parent of acres of "sugarbush", that would be syrup and they are 150-200 yrs old. I only cut them when they get sick.

We have lost many of our best tree species, chestnut, american elm, the white ash is going now due to the imported boring insect, beech black cherry and butternut have canker diseases


Anyway, is the live oak a white oak? That is sweet acorns and bearing each year? Or like the red oak with a bitter fruit that bears biennial?


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

Dogwood under threat now, too, I hear. Too bad, that is a beautiful tree.


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