Hi All,

I planted a sandy live oak from the nursery back in September and watered it every other day as instructed and it was looking real good until about a month and a half ago. I've cut back a lot on the water as instructed with the cooler temps.

Last week I had an arborist come out to look at the tree and he stated everything is looking reasonably well for a newly planted tree. He recommended a soil moisture gauge and to water only when it indicates the soil is dry. I've done this, but over the past week after him coming out almost all the leaves are now turning brown and I'm getting concerned.

Do I need to water more or is it normal for sandy live oak leaves to turn brown in the winter? I've seen mixed info on this.

Any help would be appreciated as this tree is a memorial and I need it to pull through and prosper.

Can you post a picture? There are a couple arborists/landscapers on this board. I am a small scale tree farmer. Maybe the brain-trust can help out.

I'll try and get some pictures posted later today.

Doing more research, it seems that it could be due to the roots not being established enough and the cold weather (hopefully this is the case). Hoping it bounces back in the spring.

*Disclaimer here... I am not an arborist and have been trying to solve some of these issues myself.

For reference, I am irrigating every 4 days currently until it gets consistently below 50 degrees and then will switch to once a week. The difference is that my crop is container grown with very well draining soil. My soil mix is 25% sand.

My guess is that the tree is just stressed from being transplanted and a cold snap just hit. Give it a light scratch on the trunk every few weeks to see if it is still green.

From a fertilizer standpoint, root growth is typically associated with phosphorous in the NPK ratio and from my experience, roots tend to grow drastically over winter. Maybe find a root stimulator at your local nursery/hardware/feed store. I wish I had a recommendation that was suitable for 1 tree application.

Hopefully the roots can establish themselves this winter and come spring the tree bounces back. It is amazing how much a tree can change from fall to spring from a health standpoint.

Ive heard of scratching the branches a lil with a knife to see if its green at the scratch. Guess if no green its a goner.....

aggiebrad16 said:

---

*Disclaimer here... I am not an arborist and have been trying to solve some of these issues myself.

For reference, I am irrigating every 4 days currently until it gets consistently below 50 degrees and then will switch to once a week. The difference is that my crop is container grown with very well draining soil. My soil mix is 25% sand.

My guess is that the tree is just stressed from being transplanted and a cold snap just hit. Give it a light scratch on the trunk every few weeks to see if it is still green.

From a fertilizer standpoint, root growth is typically associated with phosphorous in the NPK ratio and from my experience, roots tend to grow drastically over winter. Maybe find a root stimulator at your local nursery/hardware/feed store. I wish I had a recommendation that was suitable for 1 tree application.

Hopefully the roots can establish themselves this winter and come spring the tree bounces back. It is amazing how much a tree can change from fall to spring from a health standpoint.

---

I sent some pictures to the arborist who came out a week or so back and he stated it was frost shock / cold temp damage and not anything to be super concerned with.

You see similar issues in tree's you got in containers yourself? Perhaps trees need pretty established roots in general to avoid the browning in winter.

I have other stress issues affecting some trees unfortunately. I believe my biggest mistake this year was bumping trees from a 5gal container to a 15gal container in the summer caused unneeded stress due to root pruning. Looking back, silly mistake. I was just trying to do the work when I had the time to do it.

Everything I bumped up in the spring looks fine.

We have 1000 trees currently. 700 in 5gal containers that we purchased in the fall with intention to bump to 15gal in the spring of next year. The other 300 are already in 15gal containers.

I have been thinking about making a thread on the OB to document what I have been doing and ask questions of the group. I think the OB may get a kick out of that. I may also open myself up to lots of criticism in typical OB fashion! Ha!