Trees That Please Nursery: 30 Days of Fall Foliage, Monday November 12th.

Escarpment Live Oak

New Mexico Live Oak (Quercus fusiformis), also known as Escarpment Live Oak, is a New Mexico native evergreen oak. New Mexico Live Oak has thick glossy green leaves. Its leaf structure varies, from smooth or pointed margins, sometimes even on the same tree. New Mexico Live Oak can have annual growth of up to 4’ per year often reaching 15’ - 20′ or more in height and width. The wild growth form is multi-trunked but if pruned to a single trunk can exceed 20’.

New Mexico Live Oak is very heat and drought tolerant and is best grown in well-drained soils but will tolerate clay. This evergreen oak does well with low to regular water and is hardy to USDA Zone 6.

As an evergreen oak there is no color change associated with fall. Both mature

and young trees retain their leaves through winter.

Some trees may have a few older leaves that turn yellow or red. Escarpment Live Oak acorns also ripen in fall.

If you look closely leaf veins are usually reddish in the fall also.

This green foliage provides winter interest in your landscape while deciduous trees have lost their leaves exposing branch framework. The New Mexico Live Oak on the other hand looks “alive” all winter.

Contact Trees That Please Nursery for more information, availability, and pricing.

Photos & Narrative By:

Stephen Sain
Staff Plant Physiologist

Comments

Desert Dweller said…

And I know I'm in Valencia County when I drive down a residential street and see a few Quercus fusiformis, but hardly one (struggling, hatin' life) aspen. Abq has a way to go on the above order, but it's starting to change.

November 12, 2012 at 2:02 PM

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