Shumard oak is a large red oak native to the eastern and central United States, grown mainly as a shade and street tree. It needs full sun, deep space and tolerates a wide range of soils, including ones that flood for a few weeks a year.
Family
Fagaceae (Beech & oak family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply during dry spells while young, then it is drought resistant once established.
Soil
Tolerates a wide range of soils and pH, including moist lowland soil that floods briefly.
Temperature
Hardy in cold winters; cultivated as far north as Ottawa, Canada, and as far south as Florida.
How easy
Easy
Native range
S. Ontario to C. & E. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate
About
Quercus shumardii, the Shumard oak, spotted oak, Schneck oak, Shumard red oak, or swamp red oak, is one of the largest of the oak species in the red oak group (Quercus section Lobatae). It is closely related to Quercus buckleyi (Texas red oak), Quercus texana (Nuttall's red oak), and Quercus gravesii (Chisos red oak).
Where it grows
Shumard oak is native to the Atlantic coastal plain primarily from North Carolina to northern Florida and west to central Texas; it is also found north in the Mississippi River Valley to central Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, Missouri, southern Illinois, Indiana, western and southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It is found locally north to southern Michigan, southern Pennsylvania, Maryland, western New York, and the extreme south of Ontario, Canada.
Uses
Shumard oak is valued for commercial use and as a shade tree. With the Shumard Oak's ability to tolerate and thrive in a wide range of soil types, it is cultivated at least as far north as Ottawa, Ontario and southern Quebec, and as far south as Lake Worth Beach, Florida.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Quercus shumardii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.