Water trees?

[lou_midlothian_tx]

Should I water trees since that we haven't had much rain in DFW area for quite a while even though it's still winter?

[Mikey]

It depends on the tree and how well drained the soil is. Some well established trees are very drought tolerant. If they are young trees that have been planted recently, I would do one deep watering once a month. Do a search on the sight if you know what kind of trees you have. Red Oaks hate too much water, it can kill them.

[lou_midlothian_tx]

All trees were planted past 4-5 months.

Lacey Oak
Live Oak
2 Shumard Oak
Crimson Spire Oak
Vasey Oak
3 Red Rocket myrtle crapes
2 Dynamite Myrtle crapee
Muskogee
Natchez

That's a lot of watering to get them established for the next year (a couple years for oak trees) and I sure hope that things turn out for the better this coming summer weatherwise! You can imagine that I did not receive very much rainfall since I planted all those so that's something I'm concerned about.

I'm aware that Texas Red Oak doesn't like too much water but I'd think that Shumard can tolerate more watering? There are many of huge ones in houston where it rains a lot more than up here.

[Mikey]

Hey Lou, sounds like you have a nice variety there. The shumard is a red oak, I have one in the backyard that I planted about the same time you did. Very nice fall colors! Mine went red for a good while then to a nice purple. They do not like wet feet. More of them die from overwatering than underwatering. I noticed you are in Midlothian, my aunt and uncle lived out there for 20 years or so. I remember the soil being quite "rocky", but that may have been just their area. Anyway, I would do a little research on each tree, and go from there. Make sure the varieties you have will survive in our area.

I use Garrett Juice about once a month as a drench and spray. I can truly say this works as a root stimulator. I recently transplanted a bloodgood japanese maple that I planted in the back yard in August. This tree was in a half gallon container (approximately 9" diameter), 2 feet tall, and not rootbound in the container. I dug it up last month (I dug around it in a 2 foot radius) and the roots had spread out tremendously!!! It now resides in the front where it will get proper morning sun and afternoon shade.

Good luck with your trees!!!

[lou_midlothian_tx]

Yes, you're right about rocky soil (limestone). It was difficult to plant several trees! I was ready to use dynamite to blow up a hole so i could just plant trees there!

BUT in an undeveloped land, there is 2-3 feet of pure black topsoil (mostly clay) on top of limestone bedrock. You can see that the builders cleared those out for building houses.... :( .

I've done a lot of researching and all of the oak trees that I planted are drought resistant ones but that's for established ones. I haven't really watered them much though. I did give them one deep watering a while back, over a month ago? but the fear of overwatering that will lead to death kept me from doing anything more. All of them have generous amount of cedar mulch around the trunk (dougnut type) so I'm hoping that's good enough to keep the moisture in. I've also used seaweed liquid for soil drenching.

I probably have the most trees in my entire subdivision but i didn't have much of a choice because I live on a corner lot facing south and west so you can imagine how hot it can get during the summer so i planted trees in that direction so one day, they'll provide shade for the house but that's like 10-15 years! I guess I'll have to suffer for a while before things get better! :lol:

[lou_midlothian_tx]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Bur Oak!

I'm also trying to grow Burenglish oak from acorns that i got online. I also am trying to grow live oaks but I have no clue of which variety but they looked very nice. The acorns were TINY compared to other live oak trees! They look different as well. There's red oak acorns that I'm also trying to grow but no idea which variety but it looks like Shumard. ALl of them in sytrofoam cups. I got all these acorns from Maple Fall which is about an hour northwest of Austin. The soil is rocky like my area so I figured they'd well here if i ever grow them from acorns! I'll probably give them away if somehow i ended up with 70 trees! LOL

[Mikey]

Hahaha!!! I am trying the same thing but with japanese maple seeds. Mine are all in the refrigerator now. We will see what happens!!! Maybe we can do some trading. Good luck with your trees. Oh yeah, do you ever see impressions of sea shells in your limestone??? My cousin and I used to go up to the top of this big hill (when they lived in Midlothian) and see areas of limestone with impressions of sea shells. The water must have been VERY deep there at some point in time. Crazy!!!

[Mikey]

PS as of today, I have japanese maples sprouting!!! Four so far. If the other 496 of them do well, I will either be in business or looking for more pots or both. I know they aren't true to the parent tree, but we will see what happens!!!