An interesting tree project needing arborists input.
Greetings Reddit Arborists. I come to you for advice on a project I wish to try, but I am looking for advice to help it (hopefully) succeed. I live a few miles out from Princeton Mn USA. I want to take 3 oak trees of different types and as saplings weave them together. So they can grow as a single tree.
The types I wanted to use are a White oak, a Red oak and a Black oak.
I have been looking into this idea for a few years off and on. And while I have asked AI for ideas, AI can really only be trusted to start an investigation at best.
So enough of the rambling, what I'm looking for suggestions for are this:
Species names that will work well together, in Minnesota's harsh winters.
What methods I should use to start this.
The soil is sandy in the area I am going to plant this. It is also on a hill about 15 feet from a small swampy area, that is also elevated about 8-12 feet above the swampy area.
The hill area has grasses, but otherwise is open field for about 1000 feet in all directions.
The AI suggested planting them in a triangle, about a foot apart then leaning them in towards each other and begin the braiding. I will use a twine to tie them together. The AI also suggested to remove the bark where they touch. I don't know if that's a good idea for this.
The species it suggested ( I know nothing about plant/tree species, other than for this project they should be similar for best chances) are:
Quercus rubra
Quercus alba
Quercus velutina
Now if anyone has better suggestions please tell me. Again the info I am starting with is AI based. So it's not going to be very accurate. But it's a jumping off point for now. Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.