Twigs all over the lawn: squirrels, twig girdlers, or a tree shedding its own twigs
Why oaks drop small branches in summer and fall, how the cut end shows whether a squirrel, a beetle or the tree itself did it, and what to do with the twigs.
Topic
Oaks
Every article on oaks: telling the red group from the white, when oaks leaf out, the dead leaves they keep, the galls wasps make, and the rare oaks we grow.
We grow oaks from seed, among them the rare oaks garden centers do not carry and the Wye Island cherrybark oak line, sold as saplings and as acorns to sow. The Rare Oak Collection puts five of them together.
Articles tagged Oaks
Mast years: why oaks, hickories and beech bear a huge crop one fall and almost none the next
Why oaks, hickories and beech crop heavily in some years, how red and white oaks keep separate calendars, what mast does to wildlife, and when to collect seed.
Planting acorns, nuts and seed: collecting, storing and the first year
How to collect sound acorns, nuts and native seed, which sprout at once and which need a cold winter first, where to store and sow them, and the first year.
Marcescence: why young beeches and oaks keep their dead leaves all winter
The copper-brown leaves rattling on beech saplings and young oaks in January are marcescence. What it is, why it might happen and why it needs no action.
Red oaks and white oaks, and where each belongs
How to tell red oaks from white oaks by the leaf, why the groups differ in acorns, oak wilt and lifespan, and which species fit wet flats, dry ridges or a lawn.
Wasp galls on oaks
Oak apples, bullet galls, wool sower galls and woody twig knobs are all grown by the tree around a tiny wasp. They look like disease and almost never are.
When oaks leaf out, and why two of them never agree
The order in which an eastern woodland leafs out, why two oaks ten feet apart can break bud two weeks apart, and how to tell a late oak from a sick one.
How old is that tree, really?
Forest trees live far longer than the lifespans quoted online, and open-grown trees are usually younger than they look. Both errors ignore how trees grow.