Southern live oaks are a delightful and notable piece of the Texas landscape. These trees can live for quite a long time; however, they can require specific care to remain healthy and look great through our brief yet fierce winters and long, dry summers. Here are TreeNewal’s number one essential tips on the most proficient method to care for your Southern live oak tree!
About Southern Live Oak Trees
The southern live oak tree, or Quercus virginiana, is a type of evergreen oak tree. They are most frequently seen as in, you got it, the south — locally from Virginia right down into Port Lavaca, TX! Southern live oaks are eminently impervious to fire because of their monumental level and are worked to endure most floods and hurricanes considering the components of their mighty trunks.
These majestic trees are likewise well known for their very lengthy life and generally quick development rate. While it takes them as long as 70 years to arrive at their full trunk width, that is a short time span contrasted with the centuries they typically live!
Did you know: The most established realized southern live oak tree is viewed in Louisiana and is assessed as around 1200 years of age.
Step by step instructions to Take Care of a Southern Live Oak Tree
Sunlight
Make a point to plant your oak in a space that gets a lot of sunlight — they need no less than 6 hours of direct sunlight consistently. The species can deal with a touch of shade, however surely does best with full openness.
Pruning
The ideal time for southern live oak tree pruning in North Texas is once your trees have gone dormant for the pre-winter and late-fall seasons — November through January explicitly. This time span will assist with staying away from the dangers related with any unplanned non-life-threatening injuries to the tree that can draw in pests and diseases. It’s simply generally simpler to see where you’re cutting when there aren’t leaves obstructing your view!
Be particularly certain to abstain from doing any oak tree trimming or pruning between the long periods of February and June, as this is the top Oak Wilt season. The uplifting news is an oak tree just should be pruned on normal every 3–5 years whenever they’ve developed. Here is a thing to pay special attention to that lets you in on the ideal opportunity for pruning has come.
Signs Your Oak Tree Needs Pruning
- Cracked bark
- Intently covering branches
- Unnecessary development
- Storm damage
- Hanging or broken branches
- Uneven overhang
- Dead appendages
To get more familiar with great pruning methods and practices, look at our Common Tree Pruning Mistakes You Might Be Making post. Recollect that you can likewise generally call TreeNewal to deal with all your pruning needs for you!
Note: Thanks to their huge covering length, southern live oaks should be planted far away from hazardous designs like powerlines. Their crowns frequently stretch somewhere in the range of 75 up to 135 feet across with the actual tree arriving at a full level of 40 to 80 feet tall!
Soil
Oaks will quite often lean toward acidic soil. In their common habitats, southern live oaks flourish with an appropriate equilibrium of potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorous. Along these lines, on the off chance that your dirt isn’t normally acidic, consider adding some peat greenery or pine bark mulch to the region around the tree’s foundations.
However, that is basically their inclination. They’ll endure fine and dandy insoluble soil as well as even dirt and sand assuming that it is accessible.
Pests and Disease
Bugs and ailments can be enormous, damaging issues for southern live oaks. Sap-sucking aphids, scales, and root drills are the most well-known bother reasons for underlying debilitating and branch dieback, while mold, root decay, and ulcer sicknesses lead to very much like outcomes also.
Learn more about root rot and how to control pests this mid-year.
Assuming that you suspect something may currently be out of order, our ISA-Certified Arborist can investigate your trees and plan out how best to distinguish and deal with the issue. Call us today to seek treatment began!
Water
Lastly, make sure to water your oak consistently — particularly during seasons of dry spell. As little saplings, southern live oaks develop shockingly quickly when their foundations are given the perfect proportion of dampness. Nonetheless, that changes radically to just requiring insignificant watering following a couple of long periods of laying out their underlying foundations.
Keep in mind: Always plant your oak trees at a slight height from the encompassing soil to support healthy water waste.
Appropriate care for a southern live oak tree is essential to keeping it healthy and looking great. Our team at TreeNewal is here to assist you with all of your southern live oak needs. Get in touch with us today for more information on how we can assist you with dealing with your trees!
In the event that you want advice or help with really focusing on your Southern live oak trees, reach out to the ISA-Certified Arborists at TreeNewal and appreciate tailored tree care advice.
