Quercus Gambelii after one year

[LittleDingus]

Saw another poster post their gambel oak in another thread. Rather than hijack theirs, I thought I'd start my own thread.

My wife and I drove through UT last June. I loved the tiny (by midwest oak standards!) deep lobed leave on these guys enough that I ordered some acorns from Sheffields. This one was planted in August of 2019 so is just about exactly one year old right now. It was inside under lights all winter. It didn't loose any leaves over winter...but it didn't grow much either. I think it had like 6 leaves on a single trunk when I moved it outside in April. This is it today:



This is all from a single acorn. It was slip-potted from a 1 gallon grow bag to this 3 gallon bag with the sides folded down to reduce the soil depth a couple of weeks ago. I wanted it to have more room to widen through root suckers. The species is new to me so I don't know if I'll get another flush this season or not. Our temps are still in the 90s most days but daylight is shortening and cooler weather is on the horizon.

My plan for this one is to widen it into a hedge and let 1 or 3 trunks grow out of the hedge. Not "bonsai" but reminiscent of some of the stands we came across while hiking. Quite often we'd come across a thick under bush of oak leaves with a tall, skinny tree or two growing out of the brush.

Mostly what I was struck by with the other post is that their gambel was also 1 year old but had only a single trunk and a half dozen leaves or so whereas this is mine after roughly the same period. I know I seriously over water by most people's standards. This tree is in roughly 80% Napa 8822 and 20% chunk coconut coif. I add coif because I feel the fibers help the oil dry bind and not be so loose when I water. I soak the tree every day and often twice when the temps are above 90F.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Interesting it grew this way. For some strange reason personal oaks try to grow extra trunks from base. Not Gambel Oak. Have allowed 2 of 7 to grow 2nd trunk. With all those trunks yours should be getting a decent base and expect tap root as well. Your Coco fiber should rot away within a year or so.

 

[LittleDingus]

Interesting it grew this way. For some strange reason personal oaks try to grow extra trunks from base. Not Gambel Oak. Have allowed 2 of 7 to grow 2nd trunk. With all those trunks yours should be getting a decent base and expect tap root as well. Your Coco fiber should rot away within a year or so.

I'll have to look again but I think all 3 of my gambel oaks have grown new trunks from root suckers. I have a virginianus that has done the same. I thought that was a natural growth habit of gambel? Fire burns them to the ground and they quickly throw up new suckers from the roots? It's certainly something I'd like to encourage. The gambel suckers seem to mostly come straight up wheras the viginianus grow outward more unless they hit the side of bag first.

When I reported this one two weeks ago I carried most the existing soil with it, but I did tease the bottom a bit to take about 2 inches of soil off to plant it shallower. I was hoping that would help it spread wider. No sign of tap roots then. I was quite surprised by that. I should have taken pictures.

And yeah, I specifically use chunky coif as it does break down fast. Mostly I use it as it seems to help give structure to the soil until new roots start to bind it. I mostly use pure Napa 8822 for everything. It's cheap, readily available here and I've yet to notice any problems using it.

 

[LittleDingus]

Interesting it grew this way. For some strange reason personal oaks try to grow extra trunks from base. Not Gambel Oak. Have allowed 2 of 7 to grow 2nd trunk. With all those trunks yours should be getting a decent base and expect tap root as well. Your Coco fiber should rot away within a year or so.

What types of oaks do you have in your collection? I have gambel, live oak and cork oak so far. All from acorn.

I'm hoping to harvest chinkapin acorns this fall. More for personal reasons than for bonsai...though they will live in pots.

I'd also like to get turbenelli if I can ever find a eliable source for acorns. Sheffields has been out of stock for years

 

[PiñonJ]

Your observations about Gambel Oak are correct. While they can become tall trees in the wild, they most commonly spread laterally and grow in thickets. I moved one from a grow box into a bonsai pot this year and I keep finding suckers coming up right at the edge of the pot.

 

[LittleDingus]

Your observations about Gambel Oak are correct. While they can become tall trees in the wild, they most commonly spread laterally and grow in thickets. I moved one from a grow box into a bonsai pot this year and I keep finding suckers coming up right at the edge of the pot.

That's what struck me most about the scrub oaks visiting Utah. Being raised in Illinois, our oaks were tall and/or fat. Even the babies tend to be tall and lanky until they hit the light. When we went to Arches National Park and I suddenly realized that all those short green thickets I could see literally everywhere were oak I was shocked! In my native oaks, that would be a rather impressive forest indeed! I wouldn't even have thought they were oak at all until I got close enough to one to see it littered with hundreds of baby acorns.

I believe the ones we saw in Arches were turbenelli. Hence my interest in them. I saw my first gambel repelling in Moab. The deep lobed leaves reminded me of burr oak from back home but much smaller. Several of the "groves" we hikes past were one or two tall but skinny trunks with a thicket of much shorter oak surrounding them. The thickets were DENSE. Impassable. That's the image I'm hoping to ultimately build with the few gambel I have.

 

[PiñonJ]

They are quite hardy, but hard to collect, since they tend to have few surface roots in semi-arid conditions. I collected a Wavy Leaf Oak, which was a gambelii x turbinella hybrid. It had beautiful small olive-green leaves and a twin trunk. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive collection.

 

[LittleDingus]

They are quite hardy, but hard to collect, since they tend to have few surface roots in semi-arid conditions. I collected a Wavy Leaf Oak, which was a gambelii x turbinella hybrid. It had beautiful small olive-green leaves and a twin trunk. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive collection.

Isn't turbinella white and gambelli red? I didn't think oaks crossed that way, I thought they crossed within their sub-groups only? I would have loved to have seen that tree!

 

[PiñonJ]

Isn't turbinella white and gambelli red? I didn't think oaks crossed that way, I thought they crossed within their sub-groups only? I would have loved to have seen that tree!

White Oak is one of the names for Gambel Oak, but common names mean very little. Wavy Leaf Oak is a hybrid between Gambel and any of six other species of scrub oak, one of which is turbinella. Grey Oak (Quercus grisea) is another.

 

[Potawatomi13]

White Oak is one of the names for Gambel Oak, but common names mean very little. Wavy Leaf Oak is a hybrid between Gambel and any of six other species of scrub oak, one of which is turbinella. Grey Oak (Quercus grisea) is another.

Oak family is very promiscuous. Hybrids abound wherever they meet.

 

[Potawatomi13]

What types of oaks do you have in your collection? I have gambel, live oak and cork oak so far. All from acorn.

I'm hoping to harvest chinkapin acorns this fall. More for personal reasons than for bonsai...though they will live in pots.

I'd also like to get turbenelli if I can ever find a eliable source for acorns. Sheffields has been out of stock for years

Two Oregon White oak Q. garryanna, 3 Northern Red Oak Q, rubra, 1 California Black oak Q. kelloggi, 1 (I think) garryanna x Q palustris (northern Pin oak) intended to be Bonsai. Also have 2 rare Georgia oak Q. georgiana not intended to be Bonsai. The oldest tree is in 8th growing season from acorn. Very strangely both garryanna oaks 8th and 7th years growing acorns for second year. All trees very much in development stage.

If interested still have several Georgia acorns in fridge and garryannas growing acorns now soon to be ripe.