Photo: Bruce Kirchoff, CC BY 2.0, cropped · Wikimedia Commons

Oglethorpe Oak

Scientific name: Quercus oglethorpensis

One of the rarest oaks in North America, with willow-like unlobed leaves and white-oak toughness.

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Saplings ship bare-root or in a pot, usually 12 to 18 inches tall, in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated here with the price, once available.

We grow it as saplings and acorns. One email when it is listed with prices, and nothing else. Or ask, and we reply with what is ready now. Live plants ship February to May and October to November.

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RareWildlife valueTolerates wet soil

Type: Large tree
Mature height: 50–80 ft
USDA zones: 6–9
Growth rate: Medium
Flowers: April
Fruit: Acorns, October to November
First crop: About 35 years
Mature spread: 45 ft
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Average, Wet
Grows wild in: Floodplain forests, swamps and wet flats
Native range: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina See what is native in your state

Hardiness zones Find your zone by ZIP code

Oglethorpe oak survives in scattered stands on heavy, seasonally wet clay. It belongs to the white oak group, has narrow, entire leaves that look nothing like a typical oak, and has grown well far north of its native range in arboretum plantings. Growing it in a garden is a small act of conservation. Well suited to a wet clay lawn, or to an arboretum row beside the other rare white oaks.

Size, growth and what to expect

Fewer than a thousand wild Oglethorpe oaks are thought to remain, in the Piedmont of northeast Georgia and western South Carolina with outliers in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The survivors grow on heavy, poorly drained clay in stream bottoms and first terraces. It is a medium grower, and our growth estimator models it at roughly a foot and a half a year in youth on an average site. A normal mature tree stands about 65 feet with an 18-inch trunk and a crown 45 feet across, within a usual range of 50 to 80 feet.

It flowers in early April, and late frost often damages the female flowers, so acorn crops are usually small. The acorns are ½ to ⅔ of an inch long, under a bowl-shaped cup covering a third to nearly half the nut. They fall in October and November and sprout at once, and birds and mammals eat them. The tree was named in 1940 for Oglethorpe County, Georgia, where Professor Wilbur Duncan first identified it.

How to grow Oglethorpe Oak

Oglethorpe oak wants full sun and tolerates heavy ground. It grows wild on clay that stands wet all winter, so a low corner that drowns other trees suits it; ordinary drained soil works too. It grows tall and broad, so allow 30 to 40 feet from buildings, other large trees and overhead lines.

Plant a dormant sapling between leaf fall and bud break, bare-root or potted, in a hole twice the root width and no deeper, flare at the soil line, native soil put back unamended. Stake only if it will not stand up. White oak acorns sprout within weeks of dropping, so sow them on arrival, an inch deep, under hardware cloth.

Water deeply every week or two the first summer and keep a wide mulch ring off the bark. Deer browse young oaks hard, so use a five-foot tube and remove it once the trunk fills it, usually in year three. Remove any second leader.

Oaks are wind pollinated and need pollen from another tree to set acorns, and an isolated Oglethorpe oak sets fewer. Plant two or more seedlings. Its taproot means it moves best young. White oaks resist oak wilt far better than red oaks. Chestnut blight has been found cankering wild Oglethorpe oaks, which is unusual for an oak, so watch for sunken dead bark.

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

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