We purchased this 65 gallon tree in May 2012, from Brazos Bend Tree Farm, together with the Burr Oak and Slash Pine. The Shumard Oak did very badly in the first two years, with most of its leaves turning brown by mid-late summer. However, in 2014 and 2015 it did great, with lustrous dark green disease-free leaves remaining until at least October. Being an amateur in 2012, I thought it would be interesting to buy a tree that had no vertical leader, and hence it has not really increased in height much, but is ever growing outwards.
In the spring of 2013 I went away on a week vacation. Before I left, the tree had nicely leafed out and was looking like it was going to make a great recovery from its poor performance in 2012. However, I returned after my vacation to see the tree (and others) decimated - the leaves had obviously been severely eaten by an unidentified insect. I couldn't find any insects on the tree, so I figured that this must be an insect that feeds at night. I went out at night with a flashlight to find the tree covered in JUNE-BUGS! Now, june-bugs have been the bane of my life most years since - they are by far the most devastating pest in the yard and if I didn't spray the trees with imidacloprid (which I really don't like doing considering its toxicity to bees), most of my deciduous trees would be leafless. I don't know anyone else who has such severe june-bug issues (most people just mention they hear them tapping on the windows at night), so I'm not sure why they are so bad around my area - possibly it's because there are not really any other trees around apart from scattered Live Oaks and Chinese Tallow, so my yard is an oasis of delicious food for the june-bugs. One nice thing about the the Shumard Oak is its bright red new leaves in the spring. Despite seeing pictures on the internet of glowing red leaves in the autumn, the leaves of our Shumard Oak at best turn a brownish yellow.
These pictures are from mid-December 2016.
On March 11th 2017, the new red leaves were erupting, and rapidly fading from deep red to pale green.
Early March 2019, lots of catkins, more than ever before.
On March 27th 2019, I came home from work to be greeted by a horrific site - the Shumard Oak was covered in forest tent caterpillars and half of the leaves were already eaten. I sprayed with imidacloprid which killed them - however all the prolific early spring growth had been drastically set back. This is the worst outbreak of this species of caterpillar I have seen in the yard since I moved here in 2011.
These caterpillars were also infesting the large Cottonwood, the Live Oak, and the Green Ash where there were masses of caterpillars, and to a lesser extent the Burr Oak, Southern Red Oak, Post Oak, Darlington Oak, and all 3 Sweetgums. During the spring and early summer months, the branches that had been defoliated by the caterpillars put out new leaves, but these leaves were puny and yellowish, in contrast to the dark green shiny leaves on the rest of the tree.
In March 2020, the Shumard Oak was covered in catkins.
The big shocker in early summer 2022 was the sudden death of the Shumard Oak. As can be seen from pictures from previous years, this tree has always been very healthy. In the spring of 2022 it looked sparser than usual, and then suddenly all the leaves turned brown.
I have no clue why this happened....
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Shumard Oak (end of June 2019)
Shumard Oak (July 2018)
Shumard Oak (July 2017)
Shumard Oak (July 2016)
Shumard Oak (2012)
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