Jan–MarApr–JunJul–SepOct–Dec
Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-995
Water Oak
Quercus nigra
Water Oak is a fast-growing, short-lived oak of southeastern bottomlands and moist stream margins, reaching a broad conical crown 50 to 100 feet tall. Its acorns were once dried and ground into flour for stews and bread, or roasted as a coffee substitute, after leaching out the bitter tannins - though the tree doesn't bear its first crop until about twenty years old. The wood is heavy and strong, but the tree itself is weaker-limbed than most oaks and prone to storm damage and rot as it ages, so it needs room away from anything a falling limb could hit. It self-sows so readily that volunteers turn up wherever an acorn lands, which makes it an easy, free source of replacement stock.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 6–9
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 4.8–6
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 50–80 ft
- Mature spread
- 50–60 ft
- Plant spacing
- 50–70 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Juniperus deppeana
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American Beech
Fagus grandifolia
American Beech is a slow, long-lived shade tree that can establish and eventually fruit even under an existing forest canopy, unlike almost…
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American Chestnut
Castanea dentata
American chestnut once carried the sweetest nut of any chestnut species and covered more than 200 million acres of eastern forest, but an…
Canopy · USDA 5–8
American Elm
Ulmus americana
American Elm is a native stream-bank tree that grows into a 60 to 80 foot vase-shaped shade crown and, once mature, becomes one of the…
Canopy · USDA 3–9
American Holly
Ilex opaca
American holly is a slow-growing evergreen understory tree with spiny, leathery leaves and bright red winter berries that at least eighteen…
Canopy · USDA 5–9
American Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana
American persimmon fruit is bitterly astringent until it goes fully soft-ripe, usually only after the first hard frost, at which point it…
Canopy · USDA 4–9
The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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