All of my mature live oaks have brown leaves, as if the trees are dead.

I know that they are most likely in shock mode right now, but I have a bad feeling in my stomach. Could the recent weather kill them?

Looking online, I have seen where supposedly back in 83, a huge number of live oaks were killed. I am too young to know what that specific weather event was truly like, but the fact that this time the trees were covered in a layer of ice for almost a week has me worried.

Is there reason for concern, or will the trees bounce back this Spring?

I think most live oaks drops their leaves in February or early March and regrow new leaves. My oak trees are doing the same but I think this is typical. Live oaks while they are an evergreen still shed their leaves and create new growth so I bet there is nothing wrong with your trees.

If your mature oaks are 40 years or older then they've already survived this X 2. They should be fine.

cowtown ag02 said:

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I think most live oaks drops their leaves in February or early March and regrow new leaves. My oak trees are doing the same but I think this is typical. Live oaks while they are an evergreen still shed their leaves and create new growth so I bet there is nothing wrong with your trees.

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Yes I am aware that they usually drop in the march timeframe, but this is different. The leaves usually are still decently green when they drop. My trees leaves are crispy brown do 100% to the weather last week. They were still dark green before the cold hit.

I am hoping they survive, since obviously all of the 100 year old tress have made it, but just was going to get the opinion of others.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/BcMs6jXqazfSsYSs6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qkb7e9MrPia7cRRD9

Those houses were built in the early 1970's. Nearly every tree there is a live oak. There are many other examples.

I've also seen this claim online about live oaks dying en masse in '83 but only in threads like this where people say they've seen it online. Seems a bit self fulfilling and unsupported by evidence.

Anyone know if this tree is more than 40 yrs old? Seems awful big to have been planted in 1984.

Thanks for the boost of confidence guys. I will be eagerly awaiting the first buds this Spring.

Lots of live oaks in the hill country and northern Edwards plateau. They have seen many freezes over the years. Around 10 years we had almost 10 days of temps Below 28 and were around 15-17 four 4-5 days and zero at night at our ranch and the live oaks were all fine.
Your trees should be ok.

May just be about to drop its leaves. Mine always drops about 2/3 of its leaves in March every year. Right before the pollen.

What about young live oaks?

Built a house in 2018, builder planted two 3" diameter oaks. So been in the dirt for 2.5 years or so now. And we're a couple years old when planted, I imagine.

It's interesting driving around and paying attention to the live oaks. Some of them look as if nothing happened, completely green still. Others look just kind of shocked.

Then there are trees that look like mine. Completely tan as if they died months ago and haven't dropped the leaves yet. I wonder why the vast difference.
I live in the Buda area for reference.

Every tree in the state is brown. Most of them will survive.

It is going to take 30-45 days to see.

It may have killed my palm tree. For that, I am grateful.

Another way to think about this is in terms of natural selection. Centuries of winters have selected the native species that live in your area. If it's native to your location then it should survive.

To bad it won't get rid of ash juniper.

I have to say my live oaks look different after all of this but I'm betting on a full recovery. Any tree that can live in all the rock I have has to be tough.

Gunny456 said:

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To bad it won't get rid of ash juniper.

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Different selective force. Bring back the fire and you'll see the ashe juniper retreat in surprising fashion to levels and locales where you don't mind it being around. Even to where you'd rather have more of it around for fence posts.

HTownAg98 said:

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It may have killed my palm tree. For that, I am grateful.

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My wife and I both made this same statement. Ours are just sago palms but I do not like them at all.

Holy Smokes! Mine have turned brown too. I had the exact conversation with my wife yesterday. They were green prior to the freeze and are totally brown now. I'm pretty concerned.

Gunny456 said:

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To bad it won't get rid of ash juniper.

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And privet?

Oh, and Bradford Pears!

44mAG said:

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I live in the Buda area for reference.

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Seeing the same here. We are in NW of the intersection of 967/1626 by a few miles.
The 125+plus year old oak out front looks ok still, as do the 50+ ones. the younger ones are starting to brown up.

Old RV Ag said:

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Gunny456 said:

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To bad it won't get rid of ash juniper.

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And privet?

Oh, and Bradford Pears!

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I bet the population of Bradford pears was cut in half. Same total number of trees unfortunately!

bam02 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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It may have killed my palm tree. For that, I am grateful.

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My wife and I both made this same statement. Ours are just sago palms but I do not like them at all.

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If they are reasonably established, the sagos should come back. Also TIL that sago palms aren't actually palms at all. They are cycads.

Great thread . I was walking the back of our property yesterday and noticed the poor condition of many of our live oaks. Looks similar to oak wilt and had me concerned.

I drove from Dripping Springs to Mason yesterday. If my trees are dying, so is every live oak between Dripping Springs and Fredericksburg as they were all desert tan colored.

The interesting thing is that the further north I went, the greener the trees got. Hopefully that doesn't mean they were more hardy and used to cold temps.

However, around the Austin/Buda area, there are still a lot of tress that are green or at least brownish green. Mine are still bright tan colored so we will see.

HTownAg98 said:

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It may have killed my palm tree. For that, I am grateful.

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We've got (what I believe to be) a sabal palm next to our pool that's probably 30 years old and is looking rough. I will not be grateful to lose that one.

Lots of the cedar in the hill country is regrowth from the years they chained the land and is useless for fence post or anything else other than taking over and using water up.

Were just remarking on the brown live oaks today. Every one of them on our 500 acres north of Junction is brown. I think they'll be OK, but the extreme cold was a shock to them and don't remember seeing this before (we've been here 30 years).

A 70 year old or 100 year old live oak has seen plenty of freezes.. they should be fine, they may just look bad Untill the new leaves come out

44mAG said:

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I drove from Dripping Springs to Mason yesterday. If my trees are dying, so is every live oak between Dripping Springs and Fredericksburg as they were all desert tan colored.

The interesting thing is that the further north I went, the greener the trees got. Hopefully that doesn't mean they were more hardy and used to cold temps.

However, around the Austin/Buda area, there are still a lot of tress that are green or at least brownish green. Mine are still bright tan colored so we will see.

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Here in Brownwood area all I've seen are brown. Is odd, but feel confident personally that all will survive.

I've noticed a lot of pine trees in my area are now brown as well. Central Texas area.

Just wanted to check in with the OP to see how the live oaks are doing. Been sweating bullets here as every single leaf on the tree fell off a couple of weeks ago, but first noticed that they are budding/leafing out as of this afternoon.

Hoping yours are well on their way to their typical leaf growth!

guess its a regional thing? never a doubt that any of mine were still alive. over 100 between 20-50 years old in brazoria and fayette county and they never looked anything but green.

We hit -2 during the snovid freeze. Maybe yours didn't see the same low temps?

I wouldn't give up on those live oaks yet. Sounds like some premature chainsawing to me.