Description
This plant is restricted for shipment to CA , OR
Latin: Quercus robur
Zones: 5-8
Other common names: English Oak, Pedunculate oak, French oak
Mature Height: It usually grows from 40-70 ft (12-21 m), and sometimes to 100 ft (30 m) tall. The crown is wide, spreading, and round. It is large, and has a thick circumference, with a short trunk. It is a shade tree, and needs room to develop (Missouri Botanical Garden).
Soil/Climate: It is native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. It prefers moist, fertile, well-drained soils and loams, in the full sun. But is is easily adaptable to many different soils (Missouri Botanical Garden).
Notes: It is in the white oak family. The bark is very dark with ridges and fissures. Non-showy flowers grow in the spring as the leaves grow. The flowers are a yellowish green color. The acorns grow in stalks that are about 1-6 in (2-15 cm) long. Produces 1-5 acorns in clusters on a stalk. The acorns each are about 1 in long and the cap cover about â…“ of the acorn. The tree doesn’t usually grow acorns until it is about 25-30 years old (Missouri Botanical Garden). The leaves are about 3-5 in (7-13 cm) long, and are a dark green or blueish green. The stalks are short and each leaf has 6-14 rounded lobes (UCONN). The leaves do not change color in the fall. In England, this tree is important for limber (Missouri Botanical Garden). Twenty-eight years ago we started growing English Oak and quickly discovered the intense interest that deer showed in our seedbeds! At that time we planted a prospective seed orchard along one of our irrigation headers. Seven years later we had our first acorn crop. This summer a new crop showed up. When rototilling I noticed what looked like a puffball mushroom, the size of a good grapefruit and was thinking a dinner time treat so, picked it up and broke it open to see if it was still good. It had a black crystalline inside, clearly not a puffball so I took a piece to a mushroom geek friend to find out what it was, a deer truffle, not edible but certainly interesting. I didn’t realize it’s connection to the oak seed orchard when I found it but it was several tree crown diameters from the mother tree. Google states oak roots reach an area 4-7 times the area of their crown diameter areas. We’ve been in the nursery business since 1978 and have native oak around our nursery but have never unearthed truffles till this year. I unearthed a second one yesterday so it appears to not be a fluke. Truffles seem to be fairly common in Europe where they are highly prized and hunted with dogs or pigs. Oregon seems to be ground zero for them in this country but perhaps that could change. If you have interest and patience English oak may be the tree to plant. If nothing else you’ll have a prime spot to hunt deer when the acorns start to fall (Mike from Cold Stream Farm).
Problems: In humid climates, powdery mildew is more of a threat. Other than that, the English Oak has few problems. But some problems include cankers, shoestring root rot, oak wilt, powdery mildew, anthracnose, leaf spots, chestnut blight, and oak leaf blister. Also galls, scale, oak lace bugs, caterpillars, borers, nut weevils, leaf miner, and oak skeletonizer (Missouri Botanical Garden).
Wildlife: Food resource for mammals and some birds such as jays, woodpeckers, pigeons, pheasants, turkeys, ducks, squirrels, mice, badgers and deer.
http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/detail.php?pid=379 http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=a905
Cold Stream Farm supplies English Oak trees which are grown as bare root seedlings and transplants and sold both wholesale and retail with no minimum order.
Additional information on  Quercus robur can be found on the link: USDA / NRCS PLANTS Database.
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