Sick Burr Oak? Advice needed...

[Drip]

A week ago, my newly planted Burr Oak had good, young, perky leaves. Now, they are really droopy and have a grayish ash like substance on the underside of the leaf. Suggestions?

Thanks (again) in advance...

[sandih]

any chance of you providing us with an image of them?

[lou_midlothian_tx]

Not exactly best time to plant trees but you did anyway...

What size is it? Are you giving it too little water or too much water? I'm going to assume you've properly planted it e.g. making sure root flares are exposed, wide ugly hole, etc...


you probably would be better off with more frequent watering just to keep the root ball MOIST rather than deep and infrequently watering since it apparently works better for established plants from my experiences.

I use old 1 gallon milk container with a hole at the bottom, just a small hole to seep water out slowly directly on the rootball near the trunk just to keep the root ball moist consistently because it seems to dry out rather quickly. I do this twice a week depending on the weather. If it rains 1 inch or more, I skip it and wait for a few more days.

I didn't do this on a couple trees last year and watered very infrequently (whenever I water the lawn which is typically every 10-14 days) and they suffered badly in hot weather. I did some researching recently and found that newly transplanted trees benefit better from shallow and more frequently watering just to keep the root ball moist, not sopping wet until the new roots have grown into native soil. I think the problem is the potting soil which is not heavy or clay based soil that doesn't stay moist very long. I think those 1 gallon milk containers are great way of controlling the amount of water given to young trees. One gallon of water is probably all you need to keep the 5 gallon size root ball moist 2-3 times a week if it doesn't rain enough.

You might have to do it all summer long since you planted it this late...

[Drip]

It was planted back in February.

I'll try the water jug trick. With all the off and on rain, it was difficult to determine if it needed water or was receiving too much.

I scraped the soil back and it was relatively moist, but the leaves were still wilting...