Photo: Douglas Goldman, CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Georgia Oak

Quercus georgiana

Also called Stone Mountain oak.

A rare red oak from the granite outcrops of Georgia and Alabama, with glossy lobed leaves that turn red in fall and hang on into winter.

RareFall colorWildlife valueDrought tolerant

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 25–50 ft
USDA zones: 5–8
Growth rate: Slow
Sun: Full, Part
Soil moisture: Dry, Average
Grows wild in: Rocky ground and dry uplands
Native range: Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Georgia oak is a small red oak, often with several trunks, that suits a smaller yard as a shade tree. It was described in 1849 from trees on Stone Mountain, still probably its largest stand. The IUCN Red List rates it endangered, and NatureServe ranks it vulnerable. Trampled soil and drought wear on the wild stands. In the smallest of them, crossing with other red oaks threatens the pure species. Plant it where a big oak would crowd the house, or on a dry, sunny bank where the soil runs thin over rock.

Size, growth and what to expect

Georgia oak is a slow grower, so our growth estimator gives it about a foot a year. It is a small tree with a compact crown, normally about 26 feet tall. Expect 25 to 50 feet, with a crown 15 to 30 feet wide.

It flowers from March to May. The acorns take two seasons to ripen, as in every red oak, and are ready in the fall of the second year. They are small and round, three eighths to half an inch long, in a thin saucer of a cup. Quail, turkeys and songbirds favor them.

It grows wild on granite outcrops and the thin soils around them in the Piedmont, among chestnut, blackjack and post oaks. Georgia holds most of it, in 14 counties, and it is reported from seven in Alabama. The South Carolina stands are gone, and the one North Carolina stand has crossed with other red oaks.

How to grow Georgia Oak

Georgia oak wants full sun or light shade and a well-drained soil, acid to neutral, that runs dry between rains. In the wild it is often stunted on thin soil over granite, and in a garden that drains it grows into a fuller, denser tree. Keep it out of wet ground. Set trees 20 feet apart, and keep each one 15 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the roots and deep enough for the taproot. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Red oak acorns need a winter before they sprout. Sow them in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for four to twelve weeks first.

Water every week or two through the first summer, then only in a long drought. Deer browse young oaks, so guard each sapling with a tube or cage for its first three years. Keep the mulch thin at the trunk so voles do not nest there.

The flowers are wind pollinated, and an acorn crop wants another oak nearby. As a red oak it can catch oak wilt where that disease occurs, so prune only in the dormant season, to avoid the beetles that spread it. In the wild it crosses with blackjack and water oaks.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (11)