Do Oak Trees Keep Their Leaves Year Round?

Live Oaks

• The live oak (Quercus virginiana) is an evergreen oak native to the Deep South, especially along the coastal plain from Virginia all the way to Texas. It is a potentially massive oak, growing to 80 feet high and 100 feet wide. It is evergreen, with new leaves emerging in springtime to replace the old. Leaves are leathery, glossy and dark shades of green. Other types of live oaks occur in the western states, such as the canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis) and the interior live oak (Quercus wislizenii).

Effect of Location

• Some oaks are semievergreen, holding onto their leaves longer, with some able to retain them until fall is nearly over or well into the winter months. The laurel oak is an example of this, with its location dictating how long its leaves stay on its branches. Laurel oak grows between USDA zones 7 and 9. In places within this zone, such as northern Georgia, laurel oaks drop their leaves at the same time or shortly after most trees do. But along the coastal plains of states such as Alabama and Louisiana, laurel oak leaves stay green and on the tree -- sometimes through the winter – before dropping them and awaiting the new year’s growth.

Deciduous Oaks

• Most oaks, with all the oaks in the colder regions of North America on this list, lose their leaves during the fall. These include common oaks with large geographical distributions, such as white oak (Quercus alba), red oak (Quercus rubra) and the bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa). These oaks have use in the landscape as shade trees, street trees or specimen trees for the lawn but do require a cleanup beneath the tree when both the acorns and the leaves come down from their limbs.

Fall Colors

• Some oaks that are deciduous and drop their leaves in the fall provide the property owner with solid displays of fall color. One such species is the Shumard oak (Quercus shumardii), a tree suitable for landscapes between USDA zones 5 through 9. Its foliage changes late in the season, notes the Missouri Botanical Garden, turning shades of reddish-brown. Pin oak (Quercus palustris) is often unreliable in terms of its fall color, but in good years, the leaves become tints of bronze or red, reports the University of Connecticut Plant Database.