Ryan Russell's blog

At the 2012 IOS Conference at The Morton Arboretum, our first IOS silent auction was held. The funds raised were set aside to help students attend future IOS Conferences, and in 2018 they were used to help five students attend the Conference at UC Davis. The proceeds from the auction at Davis will allow us to help out even more students attend the upcoming Conference at Las Cruces, New Mexico in August. We will once again hold a silent auction in Las Cruces and I would like to ask members if anyone has items they would be willing to donate.

I enjoy finding giant trees, and always keep an eye open and a tape measure handy. Some of my finds are only giants in the sense that they are large for their species, such as my National Champion Prunus hortulana (30 ft tall). When my family and I got the chance to traipse around New Mexico in the fall of 2016, acorns and photos were not the only things on my mind. I also brought my tape measure. 

Following a very mild South Carolina winter, many species of plants had begun to break dormancy by mid-March, nearly a month ahead of schedule, setting the table for a potentially disastrous situation.  

Late September in Missouri is typically the start of acorn season, the most important time of the year for a quercophile. My good friend, Alan Branhagen, Director of Horticulture for Powell Gardens, south of Kansas City, had sent me pictures of a few cool oaks he had recently found. I invited myself up for a day trip to tag along with Alan and his lead propagator Jesse Stauffer-Baum.

The urban forest provides municipalities, homeowners, business owners, and visitors with many wonderful benefits, but it can also present unique problems. Urban trees may reach proportions matching those found in the wild and when grown in tight spaces, as is common in cities, they can be very difficult to remove when the time comes. The issue then becomes what to do with all of the wood?

The upcoming IOS Conference for the first time will feature a silent auction. The proceeds will fund scholarships for students wishing to attend the 2018 Conference. I would like to ask members to search their libraries, collections, nurseries, or workshops to find items they would be willing donate to this auction. Any oak related item such as books, paintings, photographs, live trees, oak woodwork, etc. would be great. If you have items to donate, please contact me at russellry76@yahoo.com to make arrangements.

This tree had not been pruned for many years, if at all and as a result it had grown competing leaders. These co-dominant stems were already becoming an issue and if left unchecked, would become a much larger issue...

Quercus ×egglestonii in Fairview Park in Columbia, Missouri.

The Mississippi Oak Open Days was a great experience represented by attendees from eight states. The weather cooperated nicely and though there had been several days of rain prior to the tours, the weather broke and we had two sunny days of mid to upper 80’s. We were treated to a welcome reception hosted by the Mossy Oak crew in an 1832 American Chestnut log cabin and enjoyed an impromptu tour of several spectacular oaks on the property. The second day we toured a private property filled with unusual species, and saw a number of interesting oaks around the West Point area.