Any suggestions for Oak-specific reading material?

[Deleted member 18707]

Hi folks,

I'd like to do some reading about caring for oaks as bonsai. I live in the San Francisco Bay area, and have already pulled a handful of assorted Oak saplings from my yard, a result of the neighborhood squirrel burying his acorns. Since the Coast Live Oak is native to this area, I thought it would be fun to pick one up from a local bonsai nursery, but I wanted to read up on training before I make the investment.

From what I gather, there aren't too many "oakers" out there, and info has been sparse, both on this site and trying to find books on the subject. I have a couple of years of experience keeping tropical/sub-tropical trees, but no oaks, and in general I need to brush up on my knowledge for leaf reduction, nebari development, ramification, etc.

Thanks, Zeb

 

[jk_lewis]

Since you are talking about one of (the several) west coast live oaks, I suggest you check with someone from one (or several) of the California bonsai clubs and look in back issues of their newsletters.

 

[Deleted member 18707]

Since you are talking about one of (the several) west coast live oaks, I suggest you check with someone from one (or several) of the California bonsai clubs and look in back issues of their newsletters.

Is that (tree-specific care/tips) something typical in bonsai club newsletters?

It is my understanding (quite possibly wrongly) that Coast Live Oaks are evergreen, and I don't know how much training guidelines differ as compared to tropical trees, coniferous evergreens, and deciduous trees that lose their leaves every winter.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Zeb,

Here are some links to articles that I've written in the past for our newsletter (BSSF)

http://www.bssf.org/articles-and-stories/august-general-meeting-2/

This is an old post about the tree that is my avatar:
http://www.bssf.org/blogs/eric/oak-repot-almost-lost-this-one/

http://www.bssf.org/blogs/eric/styling-live-oaks/
http://www.bssf.org/articles-and-stories/august-program-notes/

Another article in this old newsletter about a talk John Boyce gave:

http://www.bssf.org/newsletters/2012.02 - newsletter.pdf

And I'd recommend that you get a look at the book "Oaks of California" by Pavlik et al. published by Cachuma Press. I have a copy which you can look through if you want to come to a BSSF meeting and remind me in advance to bring it.

John Thompson is widely considered an expert on the topic. Also there's a guy named PaulH on this forum who is in the foothills east of Sacramento...He seems to have a lot of oaks.

Check this thread for some stuff about Valley Oaks (Q. lobata):

http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/valley-oak-q-lobata-from-acorns.8019/#post-175568

I discussed a scrub oak that I have in this thread:

http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/2014-bib-display-planning.13774/#post-180082

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Deleted member 18707]

Eric, this is great, thank you. I was just looking through the BSSF newsletter archive for tidbits as we speak, based on jkl's suggestion.

 

[jquast]

John Thompson is widely considered an expert on the topic. Also there's a guy named PaulH on this forum who is in the foothills east of Sacramento...He seems to have a lot of oaks.


Eric

JT is handling the third Thursday meeting for Midori in April and the topic is oaks. This is always a very informative meeting since he is a wealth of knowledge on bonsai not just related to oaks but it is his specialty.


Here is a link to our monthly newsletter.
http://www.midoribonsai.org/april-2015/

Jeff