McGerm wrote:
Last fall I collected some acorns from the forests around my area. The
acorns from trees of the white oak group sprouted in December and are
about 8" tall. (They are growing under my orchid HID lights.) The ones
that I think were from the red oak group have yet to do anything, they
were chilled from Oct 15-Jan1st. Two questions: Should I plant the
white oak ones out this year or keep them potted until next year. How
much longer should I wait on the red oaks?

I went back to where I collected the acorns to get a better ID on the
trees. The white oak acorns came from a tree with leaves that looked
most like a chestnut oak but had had some lobed oak shape to them.
Could the parent tree be a hybrid and if so with what? The red oaks
had no leaves still attached so my best guess is from the acorns...pin,
red, or black oak.


I potted my oak seedlings in quart pots (pots that came with some
bedding plants from a nearby nursery). When the seedlings seemed to
outgrow those pots, I moved them to gallon cans. Later, I moved them up
to 5 gallon cans.

At each repotting, I checked for the formation of a tap root. If I
found one, I cut it. That's because native oaks in my area have
difficulty in adapting to garden conditions with fertilizers and summer
water. Without a tap root, those same species will thrive with garden
conditions.

See my http://www.rossde.com/garden/garden_oak_acorn.html.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/