Native Plants
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
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Monday - October 08, 2007
From: Austin, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Trees
Title: Leaves falling early from red oaks.
Answered by: Nan Hampton
QUESTION:
The leaves on my Texas red oaks are dropping off prematurely. This usually doesn't happen until late November/early December. I'm wondering if it has something to do with our wet summer, or if I should be concerned about disease or insects? They are growing out of a very rocky limestone hillside. Thanks!ANSWER:
This seems to be a common phenomenon with the red oaks around Austin—at least around Mr. Smarty Plant's house and neighborhood. Some leaves are turning red and/or brown and falling. A few green ones are falling, too. However, on the majority of the trees there are a large number or leaves remaining. It could well be connected to our very strange wetter and cooler than normal spring and summer or some other environmental cause. Since this is a general occurrence it is not likely a disease or an insect infestation but just a slight alteration of the normal cycle for the trees. I don't think this it is something to be overly concerned about.More Trees Questions
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August 25, 2009 - After hurricane IKE, one of our oak trees (in front yard) was partially uprooted from the ground. We did place it back, and tie it down with supports. Further, we inserted fertilizer spikes, and give ...
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Native plants of Taos and Los Alamos NM from Houston
April 07, 2012 - Hi, Mr. Smarty Plants, can you recommend a guidebook for the native plants of the Taos/Los Alamos region? (I'm most interested in forbs.) I'll be headed there in May--is there anything I should es...
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Is it safe to burn Cedar in a fireplace?
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I'm trying to thin out the population of Ashe Junipers on my property in Spicewood Tx. to give the young Live Oaks a chance to compete for sunlight and w...
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Escarpment Black Cherry losing leaves in Austin, TX.
July 13, 2012 - Dear Mr. Plants:
We live in Austin off of Mount Bonnell Road. We have beautiful 20 foot tall + black escarpment cherry tree very near the house with leaves turning yellow like it's about to drop th...
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Problems with native palms in Austin
April 10, 2011 - We had a large variety of California fan palms and blue sabal palms in our yard that were damaged during the last freeze. We found that several of them now have "spear pull," which means we could p...
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