Any Oak Tree experts out there? I need help!!! I purchased and planted this tree Red Shumard Oak Tree during the early summer of 2011. At first, everything was fine. But then I noticed that the ends/edges of the leaves started to turn brown one by one and then the brown wilting moved towards the center of the leaves until they ultimately fell off. Since this was during the insane drought of 2011, I thought the tree had succumbed to the weather. I would water it almost daily (I’ve since learned that this was too much) but no changes. It only got worse. Eventually, all the leaves fell off. A couple months later (September, maybe?) I noticed that there was some green activity but that quickly went away. The following spring, in 2012, the leaves, much to our surprise, returned. The tree wasn’t as dense as when we first purchased it but there were a healthy amount of leaves. Then just like the prior year the leaves started to turn brown on the edges and eventually fell off. This spring, only part of the tree has leaves coming in. I’m guessing the tree has some kind of disease and it may not be salvageable. In the pic you can see that there is only grown on one of bottom part. I spent about $170 on it so I hate to see us having to get rid of it. Anyone know what may be going on?
I'd be more worried that it's slowly turning into this. If it starts yelling NI!!! really loud, you might wanna call King Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
Could be oak wilt. http://texasoakwilt.org/oakwilt/oak-wilt-identification/ http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/oakwilt/oakwilt.htm check for fungus. Water it maybe one to two times a week (if it doesn't rain) with the temps now and in the heat of the summer maybe every 2-3 days. Need to figure out how quickly your soil drys out to determine the watering frequency. Was it planted properly? Meaning only as deep as the pot it came in and twice as wide. Do you feed it? Twice a year I use an organic ferterlizer. FoxFarm Happy Frog. It's all organic (bat guano, feather meal, bone meal, etc), so there isn't as much of a risk over feeding it as there is with the chemical fertzs. but just a little twice a year is good. ----- However, I doubt your problem is underfeeding it. If anything, overfeeding it would be a problem. Speaking of fertilizers, do you use anything on your lawn? A weed and feed probably wouldn't be good for a new tree.
