# Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)

> The evergreen oak of the southern coast, with a vast, low crown of sweeping limbs that stands salt spray and hurricanes and can live for centuries.

Also called southern live oak, Virginia live oak, southeastern live oak. Category: Classic Oaks. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/live-oak/

![Live oak (Quercus virginiana), a broad evergreen tree in full leaf on the Gulf of Mexico shore](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/live-oak-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Woodlot, CC BY-SA 3.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AQuercus_virginiana_2010.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Large tree
- Mature height: 40 to 80 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 7 to 10
- Grows wild in: The coast and sandy barrens
- Native range: 9 states, north to Virginia, south to Florida and west to Texas (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia). Also recorded in 1 other state, outside its native range
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Dry
- Growth rate: Medium
- Traits: Evergreen, Salt tolerant, Drought tolerant, Wildlife value, Street tree
- Sold as: Saplings, Acorns

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

## Availability

Not yet priced online. Ask at captain@bluewhaletrees.com or leave an email on the web page to be told when it is listed.

## Notes

Live oak is the great evergreen oak of the southern coast, the tree of moss-hung avenues and old plantation roads, and the state tree of Georgia. It stands salt spray better than the other broadleaf trees of its coast, so it rules the barrier islands of the Atlantic and Gulf. We also grow its two closest kin, each once counted a variety of it. Dwarf live oak is a knee-high groundcover of sandy pinelands, and plateau live oak, the live oak of central Texas, has spindle-shaped acorns and stands more cold and drought. It also makes an excellent street tree in the South. Plant it as the shade tree of a large lawn, a park or a salt-swept coastal yard.

## Size, growth and what to expect

Young trees grow fast where they are well watered, and our growth estimator gives it the medium rate, about a foot and a half a year. Expect 40 to 80 feet, with a crown spreading 60 to 100 feet. Old crowns can span 150 feet, and some trees live 500 years or more. It is nearly evergreen, dropping its old leaves in spring as the new ones open.

It flowers from March to May as the new leaves come out, and the acorns ripen the same year, maturing in September and falling before December. It bears almost every year, often heavily, and even root sprouts a foot tall can carry acorns. The acorns are about three quarters of an inch long and dark brown to black. They are sweet, and turkeys, bobwhites, mallards, Florida scrub-jays, squirrels, deer and black bears eat them.

It grows wild on the lower Coastal Plain from southeastern Virginia to the Florida Keys and west along the Gulf to southeastern Texas. In Florida it grows almost everywhere from sandhills to hammocks, and farther north it keeps to the coast.

## How to grow Live Oak

Live oak wants full sun or light shade and grows in sand, loam or clay, best on the acid side. Once rooted it takes drought, salt spray, wind and an occasional flood, but not ground that stays saturated. Long hard freezes damage it. Its roots spread near the surface and in time lift sidewalks and drives, so give it open ground. Set trees 60 feet apart, and keep each one 50 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Young live oaks move easily. Plant them from late fall to early spring, in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Live oak acorns sprout soon after they fall and need no winter chill. Sow them on arrival, an inch deep, under hardware cloth.

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. Prune every year for the first three years and every five years after to age 30, taking out rival trunks and narrow forks before they split. Prune only in the dormant season, and paint each cut at once where oak wilt is present.

The flowers are wind pollinated, and an acorn crop wants another oak nearby. Live oak belongs to the white oak group, so its acorns ripen in one season and sprout as soon as they fall. Oak wilt has killed live oaks by the thousands in Texas and may be a threat elsewhere in the South. Leaf blister can strip much of the foliage in some years, and a borer attacks the roots of young trees on the Atlantic coast. Spanish moss and mistletoe often hang in the crown, and heavy moss can shade out the lower limbs.

## Sources

- [USDA Forest Service, Silvics of North America: Live Oak, Harms 1990](https://research.fs.usda.gov/silvics/live-oak)
- [USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System: Quercus virginiana, Carey 1992](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/tree/quevir/all.html)
- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Quercus virginiana](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233501097)
- [USDA Forest Service, Field Guide to Native Oak Species of Eastern North America, FHTET-03-01, Stein, Binion and Acciavatti 2003](https://rngr.net/publications/field-guide-to-native-oak-species-of-eastern-north-america)
- [NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: Quercus virginiana](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/quercus-virginiana/)
- [Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder: Quercus virginiana](https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?taxonid=280730)
- [University of Florida IFAS Extension, Gilman and others, fact sheet ST564: Quercus virginiana, Southern Live Oak](https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/ST564)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Quercus virginiana](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=QUVI)
- [Virginia Tech Dendrology: live oak](https://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=78)
- [Trees and Shrubs Online, International Dendrology Society: Quercus virginiana](https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-virginiana/)
- [Florida Native Plant Society Plant Database: Quercus virginiana](https://www.fnps.org/plant/quercus-virginiana)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Quercus chapter, Bonner](https://www.fs.usda.gov/nsl/Wpsm/Quercus.pdf)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Quercus virginiana](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.147876/Quercus_virginiana)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [Red oaks and white oaks, and where each belongs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/red-oaks-and-white-oaks/index.html.md)
- [When oaks leaf out, and why two of them never agree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/when-oaks-leaf-out/index.html.md)
- [Marcescence: why young beeches and oaks keep their dead leaves all winter](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/marcescence/index.html.md)

## Related

- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Live Oak, add ?species=live-oak with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address, for example ?species=live-oak&zone=7&sun=part&moisture=average.
- [Companion species for Live Oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=live-oak): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate itself runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/#species=live-oak
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Live Oak is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/#species=live-oak
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Live Oak needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the planner runs in the browser at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/#plants=live-oak:2
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Live Oak flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species.