Bare root stock available Oct-April or PRE ORDER NOW and reserve Red Oak (quercus rubra) has fantastic red and orange autumn foliage colour. In Britain the Red Oak is by far the most commonly planted American oak. It comes from eastern North America from Nova Scotia to Georgia. The first introductions to Britain were confused by wrong identification in the early eighteenth century. The Red Oak was extensively used as a forest tree in Europe in the nineteenth century and in Britain after 1920. The tree grows faster than native oaks in most of the country, but it requires full light and will not tolerate close spacing.