r/arboriculture

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.

Zone 5b/6A seems to depend on the map. I planted several Emerald Aborvitae in a wall formation about 3’ apart and over half of them died. They were 3’ tall when I planted them. If I had the money, I’d just replace the dead ones and try again, but that was a pricey investment for me.

I watered them every day after planting. There are two giant trees about 30 feet away from the closest Avorvitae, so maybe the roots were taking some of the nutrients? Its not like the Aborvitae closest to the big trees were the ones that died, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for which died and which lived. Now I have a “wall” of short trees where 2/3 are dead.

I've been at it two months now, thought I'd try it out, didn't expect to like the work as much as I do, love the physical outdoor work, how direct the task is, how simple it is and satisfying it feels doing a days work. I'd just like to now improve myself.

Getting a climber course is obviously the next big step but its expensive and I'm still debating if I want this to be my career, another options I'm debating on is going back to university to do a degree in forestry.