Quercus rubra

[MrFancyPlants]

I have this oak that has already volunteered a few buds down nice and low. I've had pretty good luck with early growing season chops with elm and red maples so far this season, but wanted to hear some opinions on timing with this guy considering I'd also like to repot in the next season or two. I think there is some nice taper down there, so i hope the roots aren't a mess. If I chop now could it put too much power into the low down buds and make the internodes even longer? Just to make it interesting I'll state that I actually prefer to do lighter repottings in the fall for deciduous trees on the growth principle that that is the time of year that the trees drops it's leaves and stores energy in the roots. I haven't the guts to get experimental with the heavier reductions like this will likely require.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

Update to the thread

 

[marcosolo]

View attachment 38208

Update to the thread

Looks like a nice shohin in the making....Oak is underrated IMO, and I think it may be due to the Japanese not having something of comparable material, which would mean techniques are literally 60 years old maximum....I appreciate a nice one when I see it.....Ill post pics of one I've been playing with for a year or so in the ground, I think it's Pin, but maybe Red....

 

[MrFancyPlants]

Feel free to add it to the thread. I have a volunteer pin seedling a few years in, but I think I need to give it sometime to escape if i ever want it to progress beyond stick in pot. Where I used to live, the biggest problem for oaks was that the rabbits loved them. It is slow going with multiple complete defoliations in a single growing season.

The afore photo'd tree was unceremoniously chopped a week or so ago when I had a rough day at work. I just leaned into it with a pair of loppers. I hope the birds don't get in there and mess with the fragile sprouts before they have a chance to toughen up a bit. I'm too scared to wire it before it has a season or two to recover. Also, the compost it is in is staying bait soggy in the weather we've been having. But I think I'll wait till spring or next summer to repot, or maybe fall?

 

[marcosolo]

Feel free to add it to the thread. I have a volunteer pin seedling a few years in, but I think I need to give it sometime to escape if i ever want it to progress beyond stick in pot. Where I used to live, the biggest problem for oaks was that the rabbits loved them. It is slow going with multiple complete defoliations in a single growing season.

The afore photo'd tree was unceremoniously chopped a week or so ago when I had a rough day at work. I just leaned into it with a pair of loppers. I hope the birds don't get in there and mess with the fragile sprouts before they have a chance to toughen up a bit. I'm too scared to wire it before it has a season or two to recover. Also, the compost it is in is staying bait soggy in the weather we've been having. But I think I'll wait till spring or next summer to repot, or maybe fall?

Oak's are weird...Back when I had like 20 trees ( Yes, I let my entire collection die, First and last time I'm stating that anywhere *SHAME*), I had a few good Red's and one good Live, and all of the Red's were collected midsummer when I just started out, about 7 years ago....They dropped leaves and came back, and hardened before winter dormancy....Tried it a few years later with a few more to no avail...I think the key, like any other deciduous, is fine feeder roots and as slow of a removal of the tap root as possible......Over watering is a common killer with collected oaks, but it boggles me to know that someone would be so stupid as to overwater a defoliated tree that hates wet feed to begin with.......I like where yours is going, , but wiring early next year before those shoots thicken up and have their emergence angles set in stone is advisable....

 

[MrFancyPlants]

With your bold admission I feel more comfortable saying that I am afraid of wiring in general. I like to rationalize and say that clip and grow produces a more natural and sustainable design, but i know that for some trees it is a necessity. For elms, I find the clip and grow works well. I just search for the most natural looking buds to reduce a branch back to, and I often haven enough options that I almost always have at least one where I want it.
But for ones like this and my few pines that have more vertical growth habits, I have a hard time deciding what a natural angle to leave the trunk at is. I know a lot of the "basics" books say to go for a downward angled branch to indicate age, but I feel most trees in the wild do not have branches protruding downward, but maybe bending downward after exiting the trunk.
Hopefully, at this sat's local club meeting, I'll get to take my ficus that is over due, for some needed wiring practice. I'm taking notes if you have advice for how to wire this one. I realize the photo is prob not good enough for specific advice, but I'll try to post a closeup w/ a better camera when it comes time.

 

[marcosolo]

I have a soft spot for down syndrome trees, some call it character, I call them special...lmfaooo...I like how the trunk splits, and the nebari is quite good, just not so apparent in this photo.....I'll probably ground layer him out of the ground next year some time (Avoiding that tap root at all cost)....

 

[marcosolo]

With deciduous trees that like to sprout in crotches ( Some Maples, Elms, Birch and others), I find angle correction isnt even necessary because you can just grow some sacrifice shoots out for a season where the tree and branch meet to thicken that area so that the angle is what ever you want it to be, but with an Oak I'm not sure I would try this....Don't think it would work anyway....And wire fear was something I used to have a problem with when I was younger, but I just snapped branches until I figured out to hold the previous loop while adjusting the next, simple man.....