Planting under a Mature Live Oak

P

PlanoDME

We have a 30 year old live oak in our front yard and with the shade from this tree and the shade from our neighbors trees, our St. Augustine grass will not grow. We decided to enlarge the bed around the tree and plant some small shrubs and perennials.

I have heard that if you dig under a live oak, it can disturb the roots and cause shoots to come up out of the ground. My question is is there a rule of thumb about how far away to dig from the tree and/or how deep down you can dig to prevent this.

We were thinking about planting a small Japanese Maple and it will probably come in a 5 gallon bucket. Our other plants will probably be in 1 or 3 gallon buckets. Thank you for any suggestions or ideas.

To Answer some of the replies -- I HAVE ATTACHED PICTURE. I do live in Texas, Zone 8. There is no sunlight getting through the tree. I would estimate the lowest branches to be 8 feet from the ground. The tree does drop its leaves in the Spring. I have no idea what kind of live oak, but it is "very full". Our other live oak on the other side of the yard is not near as full and seems to be a different variety. The new planting is about 10 feet away from the tree. Not much rain in this area in the summer months, but we do have a sprinkler system. Thanks for all the suggestions.
 

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Very hard to advise without pictures. when you plant, think about mature size. Go with shallow rooted plants, and consider adding some loose soil to build up grade instead of digging into oak roots.
 
If you use air to dig you will not damage any roots of the oak. If you uncover a large root you can adjust the planting site accordingly. Look into using the Supersonic Air Knife or Air Spade.
 
Is your oak pruned clean of deadwood? Is it large, or does it drop debris?

In our area, the oaks that naturally occur, often drop dead branches that would break Japanese maples, which are brittle. Does not take a big limb either.

My preference is to go with 1 gallon to no larger than 5 gallon sizes under oaks.

Sounds like the Jap. maple may work for you. If your tree is pruned right, seems that not much should fall, if my memory serves me right about pruning when we were in Savannah. Had a chance to tinker on many live oaks over there.

Do you get decent periodic summer rainfall.
 
Plano, we can get you a lot of great advice here, but we need more details. Could you provide some pictures? How about a birdseye view sketch of the tree, where you want the new plants, the sun, etc.

Are you TX? If your live oaks are similar to ours in SoCal (Quercus agrifolia) then I would recommend you plant NOTHING underneath nor would I suggest you add more soil or anything of the sort. Here the trees are susceptible to armilaria root rot.

Can you give us more details? Where are you, what kind of tree is it, what is the shape and size of the tree, how low are the branches, how much sunlight trickles through, etc?

love
nick
 
If this is a CA CLO, taking out all the grass is a grand idea. Also, I would not consider a 30 yo tree to be mature.. being as they can go for over 200 you have a baby on your hands. I would say the most important factor about planting under it is that you go with LOW water, drought resistant plants. I have never seen root sprouting from damaged roots (on CLO's), but have seen roots die back and become infected w/fungus and other problems from digging. Pull out your Sunset Western Garden book, there is a great chapter for planting under native Oaks. If you have to irrigate your new plants, make sure they are a good distance away (at least 8') from the trunk and that you use drip. Someone had mentioned adding soil: Be careful about that, because adding too much can can have adverse affects. Dig careful, use low water, stay away from the trunk and mulch under the tree with a 3-4" layer of good chips. Oh, yeah.. if you do have to cut through some roots, its not a huge deal.. just make nice clean cuts and keep the root size that is being cut down to under 2". Ideally, cut no roots!

Just some basic guidelines.
 
Re: Planting under a Mature Live Oak

Hi Nick,
I have added a picture to my original message. I do live in North Texas. Not much rainfall in the summer months but we have a sprinkler system. The tree does drop its leaves in the spring. No sunlight is getting thru at all. We do have it trimmed/pruned (correct term?) every 2 years to get rid of the small branches and shoots out of the limbs. I have no idea what variety of live oak.

I have just seen where shoots start coming out of the ground and I was told that sometimes happens when you distrub the roots. Thanks for all your help.
Diane
 
Re: Planting under a Mature Live Oak

I think we need a texas expert to step up. In SoCal Live Oaks are evergreen trees and do not lose their leaves. Well...they do lose them little by little, but the tree never goes bare.

A close up of the leaves, the branches, the trunk, and a zoomed out pic of the whole tree can help us to positively ID the tree.

love
nick
 
Re: Planting under a Mature Live Oak

The live oak variants here DO loose leaves, it's just the post-winter event they do so that has people thinking they don't. Live under one and discover that in alternating years, the hybrids can completely shed three times prior to the 2-year cycle they produce acorns. Also notice (if you have the time and patience) that characteristics in lobes, shape, and habits change frequently depending on the cross-pollen exposures the flowers receive which is climate/weather dictated. There are so far, 16 sub-species in the Texas live oaks (that I can detect) and one year taxonomy might slightly change genetically due to so many factors, and with these slight changes come other desireable (or not) traits...in my arena it's susceptability to diseases - or resistance to historical pathogens.

The common nursery-borne stock of Q virginianna is the popular land developer specie - an oddball hybrid that's been artifically established but very adaptable to a host of environments - even disease resistant due to it's alien reality of not intergrafting with native variants in the root zone and highly acceptable of landowner's mistakes and abuses. I could advocate one might could plant anything underneath and little ill effect and prune to the heart's content while juvenile - they will survive. I know this sounds weird...and they are NOT my favorite tree, but believe me, I've tried to kill many of them in research but couldn't. Perhaps it's due to the forced feeding, constricted root environments, and almost Monsanto-like zeal growers have forced on these specimens, let alone parking lot sales promotions that most likely forced adaptation to our WalMart mentalities...all in all a very hardy tree, much unlike their native and dying cousins.

The basic and simple rules to follow in forcing our own ideals on how these planted oaks should enhance our own cracker-jack box homesite philosophies is to not sever the structural roots when laying the irrigation lines, keep the Round-up chems away from the root suckers coming up in the yards (not planted deep enough), and a simple look overhead before site selection to make sure in ten years the utility company won't have to top it so youR home can remain faithfully and All-American 100% TOTALLY ELECTRIC.
 
Re: Planting under a Mature Live Oak

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All-American 100%

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Heck yea!

Every click a different pic!
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<font color="green">The TreeHouse</font>
 
Re: Planting under a Mature Live Oak

Along with that - I was wondering if it's still legal to dope-up before a TCC? America needs to regain some of these International losses.
 
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