northern red oak vs shumard oak

Nebraskaz71

Active Member
I'm cutting some silver maples down around my house and want to put one tree back in for shade on the house eventually, not concerned with deer benefits on this one. I tend to have somewhat alkaline ground and I dont want to plant maples back. I have nothing but white oaks on my property so I ws considering a red oak for this spot. I want something fairly fast growing but strong, that will work on alkaline ground, doesnt need to get huge but I would like some nice fall color. Can anyone give me some insight on shumards vs northern reds, most of the info online seems to make the two sound almost identical.
 

I'm a Kansan, but depending on where you are we may have some of the same challenges. I have planted a few Shumard, but it is too soon to tell how they will hold up long term.
 
Kinda leanin shumard cause it sounds like it works better in alkaline soil but its a zone 5 tree and we dipped below -20 a couple times this winter.
 
I have some Shumard in zone 5 (MO, by IA border). They seem to be growing well on the creek bottom.

They did have some die back the first couple years, but have not noticed any recently. Not sure if die back was from the drought, winter, or what exactly. The first couple years, the farm had extremely saturated soils, then it turned off really dry.

They are doing better than the cherry bark oaks planted side by side.

These were MDC stock.


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Regarding the reassigning of weather zones that happened a couple of years ago, I'm not on board with it. If a particular tree is zone 5 then I take it to mean zone 4. For example we experience minus 25 at least once every year and sometimes like every four or five or so years we hit minus 35 yet we are rated zone 5a while we are really a weak zone 4. I have tried zone 5 plants here and they fizzle out within a year or two. For us it just doesn't make sense to push the zones. The result is either a very poor performing plant or a dead one. Likely other areas are listed a zone higher than they should be as well.
 
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I agree with that chainsaw, everything says zone 5 here accept a few maps that show a small pocket of zone 4 right where I live, I generally try to stick to zone 4 plants but then again I've had some success with plants up to zone 6. The zone 5 rating would probably be my biggest negative to a shumard that I can see so far.
 
I personally would avoid planting anything in my yard that is going to drop a nut of some sort. Nuts and the like make enjoying the yard more difficult and can invite unwanted visitors like skunks and moles. Just a different perspective......
 
Valid point also, never thought of that really although I have lots of skunks/moles and other cirtters already. I guess at this point i've planted 50 some oaks in my lawn on the farm so thats gonna happen no matter what in time.
 
Valid point also, never thought of that really although I have lots of skunks/moles and other cirtters already. I guess at this point i've planted 50 some oaks in my lawn on the farm so thats gonna happen no matter what in time.
Just something I cuss every year. My yard has some large walnut trees at the edge and it's horrible. I have plans to bring them down at some point. They are not worth anything due to their poor form and just facilitate moles and are hard on the mower and the like. If you already have oaks....then, one more isn't going to hurt!
 
I just spent half the evening trying to get rid of a walnut stump with a sledge hammer, im exhausted, and failed anyways, goodluck with those! lol
 
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