[Dingus] quercus virginiana (southern live oak)

LittleDingus

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In early 2019, my wife, daughter and I went to Louisiana for a long weekend. Among other things, we saw quite a number of amazing live oak! I picked up some acorns from under this one. They must not have squirrels in Louisiana...or maybe live oak acorns aren't tasty? There were acorns everywhere! That doesn't happen here. Unless it's a mast year, I need to pull them off the trees before the wildlife can!

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I didn't expect them to sprout. And they didn't :( There were no signs of acorns still on any of the trees we saw so I was sure they had been on the ground too long to have a shot at germinating. We were there in January so I figure they probably fell a few months earlier. They did sink. And I did look as closely as I could for insect holes. But they eventually rotted.

Since that failed, I ordered a 6" pot full of live oak acorns that had germinated but were still tiny. Sheffield's was out at the time so I turned to ebay. It was "30" in a pot already germinated or 5 acorns un-germinated for the same price. I went with the "30" as that seller was from Louisiana...I can pretend they are from the same tree, right?

The pot was literally a 6" pot that was wall to wall acorns each with ~6: of "trunk". Half of them had even fallen out of the pot during shipment. I counted over 40 in total.

I shoved ~20 them into better soil and pots, tossed the rest, and proceeded to watch the few leaves they had all wither and die :( Even most of the "trunks" died off since they were still softwood.

But...they're oaks! Acorns store a crapton of energy! I left them alone, and, about a month later, most of them started growing new trunks :) I'm sure I have pictures, but I'm not very organized sometimes :( Given I tried my collected acorns, gave up on them, found and ordered more, etc...that must have been late summer, early fall of 2019 at the earliest though. I wintered most of them in my garage in a grow tent under LED lighting for the first winter. A handful I kept indoors in bright south east facing windows.

Today, I still have ~15 of these guys that are now entering their 2nd or 3rd growing season depending how you count the great rebirth of 2019 ;) To celebrate...and, well, because I have too many and need to pare down...I picked a loner and shoved it into a tiny pot :D

This is the one I picked:

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Most of the ones I have are in community grow bags where I have 4-5 trees in a single 5 gallon grow bag. This one was in a 1 gallon bag all alone.

Most of my root ball pictures are blurry :( Wet dirty hands and a cell phone don't mix! But here's one to give an idea:

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I recently bought yet another @sorce pot...well, this one was bought along with a few others. I raked @sorce over the coals during one of his sales! Or I like to think I did! This one was a last minute..."what the heck, it's 50% off" click to dump it into my basket full of goodies :D The full sized tree...which is really quite small for an oak...looks pretty ridiculous in it!

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But, after some chops??

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OK, still a little ridiculous looking.

I kept those two leaves hoping to keep the branch...plus, they were kind cute up there all by themselves. I shouldn't have bothered...they fell off on their own anyway.

The repot and chop was done 3 weeks ago. Most of these guys had already burst new buds. This one was no exception. The new buds had extended to 3-4 leaves already in some cases. I really should have done this work about 3-4 weeks earlier!

Today, despite being potted back into a new container a fraction of the size it used to be in...AND that I chopped it later than I probably should have...it's going strong!

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The new growth feels a little too tender for my fumble fingers to wire safely. I'll give it a few more weeks. I'm hoping to wire them out into something reminiscent of the medusa like branch structure many of these had when we were in Louisiana.

And yes, this guy is just something fun to futz around with while I wait for some of the other ones to grow out more! If I kill it, it's not a big loss, I have a dozen more :D This was mostly something to do to see "what if" while I wait...and wait...and wait on the others to grow more!

This is my current "champion"

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So you see that I have quite a wait ahead of my yet. May as well have something to do to pass the time :D
 

LittleDingus

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Hell yeah!

It may not seem like it...but I do buy pots from other potters sometimes! Mostly bigger stuff though. You have enough variety and a style I really like...especially in some of your "quirkier" pots that owning a lot of your pots doesn't feel redundant. And the quality feels solid :D

I wish I cared enough about "Bonsia" (Capital B!) to grow better trees to pair with them though...I'm sure I'm breaking ALL the rules! Probably turning away a lot of your business with my ugly trees too :( Sorry for that!!!
 

LittleDingus

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The new growth got less tender so I tossed on a little wire to direct the lower branches out some.

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I'm really surprised at the amount of growth from this one! This is ~6 weeks growth on a later repot/chop after it had already broke bud a first time!
 

LittleDingus

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lol...this poor thing is more vigorous than it's root system will allow!

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This picture is post watering so it's wet now...but the soil (DE) was not fully dry and our temps have been unusually cool for this time of year.

I've seen it slightly wilty late in the day...but never this bad...and never this early.

I hadn't yet cut the trunk stub off after it budded out.

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I was waiting for the new leader to thicken enough my fumble fingers didn't knock it off while trying to clean it up. I went ahead and did that now.

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The leader is taller than I want the tree to be so, if it's just going to wilt like that, I went ahead and trimmed it back some too. I also pinched out the growth buds on all the other still elongating branches.

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My hope is to get this guy through the heat of summer without dying. I sometimes have trouble growing things in such tiny pots, however. We'll see. At least this one is small enough I can bring it in if the heat of summer starts being too much for it ;)
 

LittleDingus

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Time for flush #2!

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Not many buds breaking though. 2 for sure...both at branch tips. At this point it's all about gaining strength and growing roots...just not too many roots! It is a small pot ;)

The wire has also been removed and it's holding form nicely.

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Sorry for the crummy pictures...just poking through my trees after a week of daily rains to make sure they are alright and see if I need to start watering again seeing as mother nature is taking a break ;)
 

LittleDingus

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I was poking around at my tiny oaks this afternoon and got a better picture of this guy.

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I'm really surprised at the kind of growth this thing want's to put out given the tiny pot! This second flush has the leader back up to the height it was before I trimmed it because it kept wilting. No wilting this time around...it looks like it's establishing itself nicely :D

That leader is too tall for that pot, though. I think, as long as the tree doesn't appear to be struggling for water, that I will leave it. I'll probably pinch the apical buds...though these guys seem to be apical dominant enough that I'm not sure that will do much! I'm reluctant to chop lower again this season. It it survives the winter, I'll have to start putting some thought into which direction to take it.
 

LittleDingus

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And since I got a better picture of my tiny live oak...I danced around my over-crowded deck until I could dig my "champion" live oak out for a better picture as well.

I still have a 5 gallon grow bag with 3 trunks...one of which is a double...continuing to grow out.

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And I have my "champion"...which has turned into a clonal forest!

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The main trunk is just over 3/4" caliper now...not too bad for only the 3rd growing season from acorn! There are now 6 trunks in this grow bag...all are off the same root mass.

I had 2 other 5 gallon communal grow bags each with 5 trunks. Earlier this spring I pulled them out and tried binding them into 2 clumps of 5 trunks each.

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These guys tend to form a fat tuber just under the surface. I tried cutting the tuber so there were flat facets that could be bound more tightly together to hopefully help them fuse. That was a "I have too many of these so they need to either be more interesting or go into the scrap heap" type project. As such, I stuck them on the side of the house where they don't get as much attention. The ground squirrels keep digging in their bags and exposing their roots :( I've seen new flushes of growth on some of the trunks...I'm hopeful that one of them still has 3 live trunks. I think the other one only has one live trunk now :(

Anyway, those were downsizing experiments. If they becoming interesting enough to keep...great! If not, I still have 4 trunks growing out and I only need one for my memory garden :D
 

YamadoriFL

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Great progress. I’m working on one too from an acorn. I harvested that from the first home I ever owned right before I left for the new one. Kind of special to me in that sense.
 

LittleDingus

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Great progress. I’m working on one too from an acorn. I harvested that from the first home I ever owned right before I left for the new one. Kind of special to me in that sense.

Many of my trees are sentimental...ish. I refer to them as my "memory garden". They are mostly a collection of species I found interesting when vacationing that I may not have known about previously because they aren't native to me.

My live oak, for example. We saw many really interesting live oak when we were in New Orleans. They were the first evergreen oaks I had ever seen in person. There were tons of acorns scattered everywhere. I picked some up knowing they were probably dead being the time of year it was. Once I proved they were dead, I ordered some acorns to plant.

I like starting me "memory garden" plants from seed or very young seedlings as much as I can. Their size is then some measure of how long ago that trip was. Plus, I really just enjoy watching how things grow. I don't claim to do "bonsai" other than it's impractical to keep too large a collection of full sized trees! Especially ones that are not native and need seasonal protections!
 

LittleDingus

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I don't want this guy to get any taller in such a tiny pot.

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I've been playing the game of letting it keep as much foliage as possible to gain strength while not wanting to wait so long that it grows only apically.

The larger live oaks I'm continuing to grow out have all flushed again recently and this guy had one or two apical buds that I thought might be showing signs of getting ready...so I pruned it back.

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I kept at least 4 leaves on each branch in the hopes it doesn't drop any. Right now it has a main trunk line and 4 main branches that I'm happy with and would like to keep. There are still visible buds on the trunk that may/may not flush come spring...or, if the existing branches flush well, I may rub them off.

I'm hoping it'll flush before winter now...we'll see. I may have set it back.
 
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