The 65 gallon Burr Oak tree, which I purchased from Brazos Bend Tree Farm, was planted in May 2012. After struggling through the summer of 2012 (much leaf loss), it has been thriving ever since. The trunk has put on a tremendous amount of girth and the canopy has become very full and healthy. We love the giant acorns this tree produces. Unfortunately, although it starts out every year with hundreds of little acorns, they always reduce to a handful of acorns before they have had a chance to grow large - perhaps it gets invaded by a flock of birds (probably grackles which form flocks of hundreds of birds that occasionally visit the yard). We never see any birds do this, but the acorn count gets reduced from hundreds to a handful from one day to the next. Alternatively, they could be just dropping off - in July 2016 the ground beneath the tree crunched with mini acorns and none could be seen remaining on the tree. By the way, I have never seen a squirrel in my yard.
The breaking buds in spring are colorful and have much intricate detail. In the summer of 2015, we had some big, fat, green hairy visitors to the Burr Oak and the neighboring Overcup Oak. Unfortunately these enormous imperial moth caterpillars voraciously devour the leaves. I would like to see Bear Grylls eat one of these.
On September 4th 2016, I was happy to see a handful of acorns remaining on the tree - they must have been hidden before by leaves, but were now large enough to be obvious.
....and the same acorn on September 17th 2016
....and the same acorn on October8th 2016
The final 2016 Burr Oak acorn count was exactly 20 full-sized acorns - a record.
In the autumn, the leaves of the Burr Oak turn yellow and brown. The pictures below are from mid December 2016.
On March 11th 2017, the tree started to leaf out again.
On June 24th 2017, one of the Burr Oak leaves was smothered in fuzzy orange growths. These turned out to be from the gall wasp Callirhytis furva.
On October 20th 2018, I found a beautiful green caterpillar with white and pink side-stripes on the Burr Oak. It was an Io Moth caterpillar which has stinging spines.
The Burr Oak continued to do well through the burning summer of 2019.
Early June 2020, as usual the Burr Oak shed almost all its young acorns - the ground underneath the tree was littered with them, in bunches of two to five acorns. |
Burr Oak (early July 2021)
Burr Oak (early July 2020)
Burr Oak (end of June 2019)
Burr Oak (July 2018)
Burr Oak (July 2017)
Burr Oak (July 2016)
Burr Oak (June 2016)
Burr Oak (2012)
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