Weed Problem

These nasty things are infesting one of my beds. What on earth are they? Will copious amounts of Garlon remove them?

Another one of the weeds with colored foliage

Foul!!! Just for that, I'm gonna come up there some midnight and nail some of your worthless, wimpy, stinky little Viburnums!

Guy S.

MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

On a more serious note, what kind of Oaks are those anyway?

Tough to tell as seedlings. Your best bet would be to look around for the likely parents to narrow it down, and examine the acorns when you pull them (or carefilly dig one up so the acorn comes with it). Or else wait a few years for them to get past the juvenile foliage stage. Yeah, that's the ticket! Wait for a few decades!

At least you showed due respect and capitalized "Oaks." But I've still got you on my Viburnum nuke list -- you can't escape retribution that easily!

Aaarrrrggghhh!

Guy S.

Kevin, those are most likely illegitimate children of some vagrant Quercus x sternbergii, seen here http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/124748/index.html.

You can tell, because they've got inconsistent traits (occasionally green, most often reddish -- especially around the neck) and the ornery behavior of just popping up wherever.

I doubt any pesticide would have much effect; they are notoriously difficult to root out, often persistenting indefinitely (like some in-laws).

You have to wonder about the form too. Much taller than wide, but with a variety of deconformities (often forms "knees" that give out; can't seem to "shoulder" the loads as well as some species; coarse "fingers" at branch terminals are just not lithe and winsome like superior clones).

I would certainly grub these in favor of the viburnum collection. If you are in an altruistic mood, plant them beyond the "zone" and see how they fare with a little competition.

Being the Oak expert that I am...I can tell you isn't a cross between a water oak and southern red oak.

Am I off my rocker or does it look as if that might be an acutissima and bicolor hybrid?

I have already pulled 20? 30? from this same spot. Odd. Not sure why they picked that spot to grow. It's possible they came in with the leaf compost, but there are none sprouting with such intensity anywhere else that the compost was applied. Here we have mature White Oak, Red Oak, Pin Oak, and Bur Oak, with immature Hill's, Swamp White, Shingle, Gobbler, Bur, Overcup, Bebbs, Emperor, and who knows what else.

What type of Pin Oak do you have?

What type? What do you mean? There are 4 Quercus palustris that were planted here 30 years ago. Two look good, two were chlorotic messes when I bought this property. They got somewhat better with sulfur, iron, grass removal, compost etc., but still not right. They look perfect this spring after I put the iron implants in the trunk.

I wanted to know if you had ellipsoidalis or palustris. You have palustris.

...and Q. ellipsoidalis I planted in the woods :)

Nice tree. Iike the shape of the leaves better on ellipsoidalis.